Bread can be both a local speciality only available in a particular region or country, and something that once began as a local item but is now known internationally, either in its original form or modified. For example there is a version of the ensaïmada, which upon its discovery had me researching and baking to come up with my own version.

The original is a sweet layered bread dating from the 17th century, which is usually consumed at breakfast or afternoon tea and has its origins in Majorca, Spain. The modified version originated in The Philippines in the 1930s and is more brioche like and is layered with butter instead of lard and dusted with hard cheese. 

As Good as Croissants!

Recently I had the chance to meet with Sonia Graupera, a well seasoned journalist and unstoppable foodie, who introduced me to the modified ensaïmadas. She was traveling to Hong Kong and of course she did not have any with her, but Sonia described it so well that I almost started drooling! I had to find out more and so Sonia's baking challenge was on! 

At first, we tried a recipe we found on the internet which had no layers and was loaded with lard directly mixed in the dough. It didn't look like the original ones and I am sure didn't taste like any too... it was probably a shortcut version of the recipe. 

After 19 years of baking, I still love discovering and baking new breads. This is part of my daily fuel... we test, we try, we bake, we taste... again and again... until the day we reach perfection; therein lies happiness...

A few days after, Sonia and I found the same website with a very detailed version of the bread. It was in Spanish and the most challenging part of the recipe was to translate it, even with Google translate, it wasn't easy with sentences coming up as "...that summer we are having more weirdo..." I took Spanish at school and I now really regret not having paid more attention to the courses! Well... anyway, I somehow figured it out and made up what I didn't know.

Because different countries have different ingredients, I had to adapt the recipe slightly to match Hong Kong's flour, lard and other little touches. 

Ensaïmadas are excellent for breakfast or tea time and in my mind are a serious contender to croissants! 

Make Your Own

Ingredients

For the fermented dough:

30ml of water

30gm of fresh yeast

45gm of T45 flour

For the rest of the dough:

1530gm of T45 flour

330gm vanilla sugar (that's me tweaking the recipe!)

530ml water

45gm fresh yeast

9 eggs

100ml olive oil

And a handful of lard to do the layering, plenty of icing sugar for dusting and your best crème pâtissière for stuffing.

Method

For the fermented dough:

Mix the flour, yeast and water to form a ball. Drop it in a bowl full of room temperature water and wait until the dough floats to the surface.

Meanwhile, prepare the main dough:

Mix all the ingredients except the olive oil and knead the dough until nice and extensible. Take out the fermented dough from the water bath (it should have been about 20 minutes of fermentation in water) and add it to the main dough. Add the olive oil and knead a further 3 to 4 minutes; your dough needs to look very soft and elastic. Let the dough rest in an oiled plastic container for half an hour. Weigh and form little balls of dough of about 60 grams and rest for 15 minutes. Oil your working table and dough and roll it as thin as possible. If the dough breaks a little, it's okay. Spread the lard gently with your hands all over the dough into a very very thin layer. Fold the dough into a roll and form the snail shape. Place the ensaïmadas on a tray with baking paper and allow proofing for about 1.5 hours. Bake with steam for about 20 minutes at 180°C. Once baked, allow cooling a little, cut in half and stuff with vanilla crème pâtissière. Finally, dust with icing sugar and enjoy! 

Traditionally, ensaïmadas are stuffed with 'angel hairs', the sweetened stringy centre of cooked pumpkin; but they also come in several other combinations, and even in an all-chocolate version!

An interesting point about the recipes I came across was the omission of salt. It is a rare occurrence in bread recipes, but I guess it is part of the tradition. Sonia sent me a few photos of different varieties of ensaïmadas from Barcelona - they do look delicious!