Charcoal Candy for Epiphany

History
In Spain, the Three Kings' Day, or January the 6th, is the day presents are exchanged. They also promise misbehaving kids that they will receive charcoal on this date. Later, a candy that resembled charcoal was developed, and given to both well-behaved and badly behaved children, in small bags marked "charcoal".


Recipe from
70 grams Royal Icing (Beat 200 grams powdered sugar with an egg white and a few drops of lemons juice)
Black food coloring
700 grams granulated sugar
230 ml water

Mix a batch of royal icing, then add black food coloring. Set it aside. Mix sugar and water together in a saucepan, and when it reaches 130 degrees Celsius, remove from heat. Add black royal icing, and mix until it grows, deflates, and grows again. In that moment, place liquid candy in a silicone baking pan. When it grows hard,

Spanish St. James Day Almond Tart, July 25th, (Tarta de Santiago)

I duck swiftly as a very large silver object comes flying in my direction--it fortunately missed my head by a few inches! Its pendulum swing sends it violently back and forth like a metallic pinata; it is propelled by a rope pulled by several men huddled in a circle. A minute later, when it has lost momentum, a man tugs it by spinning around it like a ring game. It finally stops, and a crowd of people claps. They have been watching an 60-kg incense burner being moved by seven priests in a medieval cathedral, in the town of Santiago de Compostela.

Along with Jerusalem and Rome, Santiago de Compostela was one of the three major pilgrimage destinations during the Middle Ages in Europe. Pilgrims believe that it is the burial site of the apostle St. James, who came to Spain to convert the population to Christianity. Spaniards believe that Santiago, their patron saint, protects their country in times of need. Today, pilgrims from Spain and far away countries visit Galicia to walk on the Santiago de Compostela road, or the way of St. James, for weeks. There are several routes. The most difficult but reknowned one, the "French route", begins in St. Jean-Pied-du-Port, in the French side of the Pyrenees mountains, a few miles from the Spanish border. The other three start in Spain, Portugal, and England.  Most of the walkers are Catholic, but some of them are not; they nonetheless look forward to a spiritual experience. Their destination will be the Santiago de Compostela cathedral. They wearily stop at small hostals at night to rest and recuperate, as the following day they will be busy, walking again.
Galicia is located to the north of Portugal, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Cantabrian Ocean. To the east, it borders the Spanish regions of Asturias, Leon and Zamora.

Santiago Tart, or St. James Tart
The Santiago tart, or St. James Tart, is a dessert from the Spanish region of Galicia, and can be found in bakeries in July and the beginning of August, because St. James Day is on July 25th. This dessert was made at least as early as 1577. The first written recipe was recorded in 1838, and the St. James' cross figure decoration on the cake was started in 1924. Six years ago, this regional dessert was officially protected by the government, much like wine and cheese are; it has its own denomination of origin.
This luscious almond tart can be eaten with milk or a sweet wine. It is one of many Spanish desserts that use just the right amount of lime zest to flavor the batter.

Recipe
1/2 kilogram of ground almonds
1/2 kilogram of sugar
7 eggs
100 grams butter
150 grams flour
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of sweet sherry
50 grams powdered sugar
Mix one egg, butter, flour, and water to make the dough that you will spread out thinly in a round pan. Stir the ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon, sherry, and eggs. Spread over the dough and place in the oven at 325 degrees for an hour, until it is cooked. Take it out of the oven, cool, then sift powdered sugar on top of it. Place a template of the St. James Cross or the emblematic seashell on top of the cake, in the center, before sprinkling the sugar on top; this way, the design will appear when you remove the template. The following link has a template: http://lacocinadesabela.blogspot.com/2011/05/tarta-de-santiago-con-plantilla-para.html



References
http://www.turgalicia.es/recomendacions/visitasvirtuaiscatedrais.asp?cidi=G&ctre=visitasvirtuaiscatedrais 360 degree view of cathedrals
http://www.turgalicia.es/fotos/IMAGENES/FLASH/ARQUITECTURARELIGIOSA/vtour_santiago/index.html
http://foro.enfemenino.com/forum/cuisine1/__f16046_cuisine1-Tarta-de-santiago.html
http://www.paulinacocina.com/tag/tarta/

Natillas, to celebrate yesterday's Spanish Eurocup win!

As I walked on a straight path through small maze-like gardens, I wondered what mysteries I would discover behind the strong, 900-year-old stone wall. 

Natillas, a Spanish dessert similar to English custard

The halls, which surrounded a courtyard, were fit for pacing underneath gothic arches that adorned the ceiling like morning glories. This is the type of place where natillas, a custard-like Spanish dessert, came from. Nuns preferred natillas because they were inexpensive but at the same time wholesome and nutritious. 

This Spanish cloister is located in North Miami. A few decades ago, it was purchased by the Hearst family and it was shipped to Florida, where it was reassembled, piece by piece, like a numbered puzzle. 

If you burn sugar on top, you get catalan cream!

 Natillas were brought from Spain to Latin America, where they are enjoyed in countries such as Colombia (where the ingredients were tweaked a bit), Cuba, Mexico, among others. Cubans took this treat with them to Miami, where I tasted natillas for the first time at a Cuban restaurant in North Miami Beach. 

Natillas were taken by the Spaniards to Latin America

Recipe
2 cups milk
4 egg yolks
100 grams granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
zest of half a lemon
cinnamon stick
raspberry sauce
blueberries and cranberries
vanilla wafers (optional)

Heat the milk, lime zest, and cinnamon stick. Whisk the yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. When the milk boils, pour it through a sieve into the yolk mixture, then pour it back into the pot. Cook until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Place in a metal bowl and stir over cold/ice water until it's at room temperature. Place the custard in a dish and cover it with saran wrap and set in the fridge. Adorn it with blueberries, cranberries, a fruit coulis, and even vanilla wafers.

Raspberry Sauce (Coulis)
1 cup raspberries
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Cook the raspberries and sugar, stirring, in a pot, on low-medium heat, until the mix thickens and turns into a sauce.

References
http://www.spanishmonastery.com/
http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/pudding/spanish-mango-natilla-natilla-de-mango-espanola.html
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natillas
http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/pudding/spanish-mango-natilla-natilla-de-mango-espanola.html
http://www.cubasolar.cu/biblioteca/energia/Energia41/HTML/Articulo09.htm
http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html

Salamanca and Charming,Fragrant Spanish Lemon Butter Cakes (Spain)

Sunset  at Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain

A drummer advanced, next to a boy with a flute, as bystanders, entranced by the Piper, picked up their knees and legs to thump to the rhythm, and swirled their woolen capes from side to side. At a golden grand plaza in the center of town, the main square was wrapped in purple and pink clouds as the sun went down. It made the front of the buildings almost look like chocolate bars, engraved with a gridlike pattern formed by dozens of windows.  

At nighttime, the plaza resembled gold nuggets that shone amidst an electric blue sky. My first sobao pasiego resembled those nuggets, too; I tasted my first one in a hypermarket in the outskirts of Salamanca. It was a pit stop before my arrival to the city for the first time. A Walmart-sized supermarket held mass-produced sobao passiegos that were individually packaged like Little Debbie´s Cakes. Other interesting aisles in the supermarket were the boqueron aisles (luscious anchovies from Spain that are packed in vinegar or olive oil and eaten by the pound), the cheese aisles (overflowing with many Spanish cheeses that can´t be found in other countries), and of course the diversity of Spanish wines, and Spanish cookies/candy. 

All three pictures above (sunset, daytime, and nighttime) constitute a collection of "impressionist" views of the astounding city square. 

 History

The oldest university library in Europe (from 1218) at the University of Salamanca

 The library above is the place where I looked up the history of this dessert (just kidding; I was only able to view the library from behind a window).
The Sobao dessert comes from the Pasieg valleys, (see a 3d recreation of the area at http://www.vallespasiegos.org/3d)  which are located in the Cantabrian region, in the northern part of Spain. It used to be made with bread dough many centuries ago, but this changed in 1896, when the bread batter was substituted with flour.
Today, this popular dessert has a protected designation of origin, believe it or not! If it is not from the Pasieg valleys, it can only be called Sobao, but not Sobao Pasiego! The quality of the butter and other dairy products in this region is excellent and explains why they could protect the name of the product.

Recipe for Sobaos Passiegos, a Spanish Lemon Butter Cake

(http://cocinamycook.foroactivo.net/t6095-sobaos-pasiegos-otra-version)

250 grams flour

250 grams butter

250 grams sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of rum

the zest of one lemon (I used a lime)

a pinch of salt

Cream the sugar and butter for three minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, creaming well for 3 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and place in a mini loaf pans lined carefully with parchment paper (visible in the photos) so that the folds are creased at the corners of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or 180 degrees Celsius, for 15 minutes. The buttery cake will melt in your mouth, and the zest will color that flavor.

Sobaos passiegos set on a tablecloth from San Vicente, El Salvador

References

http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/pg060414/prensa/noticias/Sociedad/200604/14/DMO-TEL-155.html

Churros Espanoles

Churros with a caramel or dulce de leche filling remind me of school fairs where my sisters used to go to a booth called Noah's Ark, where they bought and pulled out tickets to win live animals. They returned home happily once with approximately seven baby animals (a quail, a couple of chicks, a couple of doves, a black rabbit, and two turtles).
Churros with chocolate remind me of La Rochelle in France. They sold them on the beach front, with a small  disposable cupful of thick melted chocolate so you could dip the churro sticks into them. The booth was next to the ice cream stand that sold oyster ice cream, among other flavors.
History
One of the versions of churro history is about shepherds who were out for more than a day with their sheep. They decided to make their own bread; however, since they didn't have access to an oven, they fried the batter instead.
Other sources state that in the beginning of the 19th century, churros were served in city fairs, in Madrid,Spain, often along with hot chocolate (hot chocolate in Madrid is so thick that it resembles melted chocolate, or a melted mousse). Churros are meant to be eaten when you're with other people.


Recipe
The first and last time I tried to make churros the batter was too liquid, so I was careful about its consistency this time. The churro batter is very similar to the french choux batter that is used to make eclairs or cream puffs, so if you have trouble with it being too liquid, the way to solve it is probably by just making sure you cook it on the stove.

Note that it is actually quite simple to make!
All you need is flour and water, in equal quantities, to make the batter. Just make sure the water is warm, because that will guarantee your success.
I was surprised to discover this, because I was more successful at making it from scratch now than I was when I was ten years old and tried to use a mix. I wonder what could be in the mix, other than flour and a pinch of salt.....(!) 

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup water
a pinch of salt
vegetable oil
Nutella
Measure the flour into a bowl. Heat the water with the salt just until boiling and pour it into the flour. Mix it well. Place the batter in a frosting bag that has a 4B tip (or other large star tip) Heat the oil in a pot. When it is warm enough for frying, squeeze out long snakes of batter into the oil. When they are ready, remove them from the pot with a spoon, onto paper towels so they will soak up the grease. Next, roll them in granulated sugar.
Fill another frosting bag that is prepared with a Bismarck tip, with nutella. Poke 3 or 4 holes in each churro with the tip. Then place the tip in the holes, to pipe the nutella straight into the churro. If you don't have a bismarck tip, you can also try a round tip, such as number 6.
Note: There are other ways to enjoy your churros.
a. You can enjoy it without any filling at all, like many people in Latin America do.
b. You can pour the filling on top of the churro.
c. You can dip your churro into the filling, as described earlier.