An Easter recipe for Roscas de Pascua which Javi, a Spanish family friend, sent me recently, reminded me of the story in El Camino. Javi’s mum, who lives in Leon in northern Spain, makes these biscuits during la Semana Santa (Holy Week), in a tradition rather like my Grandma’s Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. Javi’s sister in law’s mum also makes Roscas de Pascua but hers are fried rather like churros. In fact, there is a wide variety of Roscas de Pascuas, which are made over the Easter festivities, and cakes made for other festivals such as the brioche wreath, Roscon de Reyes for El Dia de los Reyes on 6 January. Here's the recipe from ‘la madre’ de Javi which I’ve translated from Spanish.
Ingredients
I egg and 1 egg yolk
(freeze the white of egg to use later)
110g granulated sugar
90g butter (cut into small pieces)
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tbps aniseed liqueur or extract
Pinch of salt
245g flour
Preparation
1.
Bring the butter to room temperature.
2.
Beat the eggs and yolk of egg with the sugar until
well mixed.
3.
Add the butter, cinnamon, aniseed liqueur to the
egg and sugar mixture and mix well.
4.
Gradually add the flour and salt until it makes a
soft dough.
5.
Place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.
6.
Pre heat the oven to 200C
7.
Remove from fridge and place between 2 sheets of
baking paper. Then roll out to thickness of ½ cm.
8.
Use a large cutter (I used a 10 cm diameter one
but anything between 8 and 12 cms is good) to cut out the rounds. Then a
smaller cutter to cut out the middle (I used an egg cup).
9.
Prick each biscuit with 2 forks to make a sign of
a cross.
Place in the oven for between 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on them to check they don’t burn!
Although
they look deceptively plain, ‘Roscas de Pascua’ are very moorish. They have a
crisp texture and a spicy cinnamon aroma. I made a batch last week and they
keep well in an airtight tin. This quantity of ingredients makes around 10-12
Roscas.
This is a short version of the article I produced for Yorkshire Bylines which you can read here.
