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During the course of this month, El Nacional and our chef, Romain Fornell, will be presenting four recipes for sweet treats that are traditionally part of a Catalan Christmas.

In this installment, Rocío Parejo shows us how to make classic crumbly mantecados, a perfect idea for your festive gatherings that will leave guests gobsmacked.

This is a typical Spanish variety of confectionary, characterized by its use of pork lard, and enjoyed throughout the year, but especially at Christmas. Its origin is Andalusian; some say it comes from Antequera and others, from Estepa.

The preparation is easy. The key ingredients are the pork lard and ground almonds. If you want a stronger hit of almond, you can toast it beforehand. For the same effect with the lemon zest, mix it the day before with the icing sugar.

Ingredients for the mantecados

60g/2oz pork lard
120g/1cup icing sugar
1 egg white
50g/ 1/2cup ground almond
80g/ 2/3cup flour
5g/1tsp baking powder
Zest of a lemon

Recipe

1. Mix the flour, ground almond, icing sugar and baking powder in a bowl, add in the egg white, and then knead in the pork lard.

2. Cover the dough with plastic film and leave in the fridge for 15 min.

3. Then roll out the mixture with a rolling pin.

4. Cut out circular shapes from the mixture so the mantecados will be round. 

5. Bake in the oven at 180º C (360º F) for 10 minutes.