The Ensaimada Trail: Pedro Ballester’s Ensaimada Recipe
Back to ensaimadas. I’m fainnly getting around to posting a translation of Pedro Ballester’s recipe for Minorcan ensaimadas. It was first published in 1923. It is therefore probably one of the first published recipes. Recipes for breads, always in the realm of professionals, are relatively scarce. I’m translating it because the book is not widely available outside Minorca.
Pedro Ballester was one of those many Europeans who in the early twentieth century recorded folkways that they believed to be disappearing. A native of the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean, Ballester worked as a lawyer. In his spare time he recorded the customs of the island. He published De re cibaria: Cocina, pastelería y reposterìa menorquinas in 1923. I have the sixth edition that appeared in 1995. It is a quite wonderful compilation full of detail about the island’s cooking.
Under pastas (that is doughs) he begins with ensaimadas. He praises those of Mallorca as perhaps more succulent than those of Minorca but also more indigestible.
Then he goes on to the recipe. This is a free translation. To make it more comprehensible I’ve divided sentences into smaller units and added paragraphing.
Before you start trying it read my notes at the end.
Proportions. One almud of flour, ten ounces of sugar, 4 ounces of fat (suet and lard), six or seven eggs and the leavening.
You make this as follows. You take one ounce of bread yeast (levadura de pan) and you put it to soak in cold water for a while to get rid of the bitterness (el agrio), you throw out the water, you dilute the yeast in warm water ( about one coffee cup full). If the dilution does not end up smooth, you pass it through a sieve, and then you ad a little flour, and you let it rest, with a cover, so that it can rise.
When you have the leavening (levadura) ready, you put the eggs in a basin (lebrillo), you beat them for a while, and you add the sugar, mixing the two substances really well.
You break up (desmenuza) with your fingers the leavening in little bits and you mix it, also carefully (esmeradamente), with the eggs and sugar. Then you add the flour, but not all at once, so that you don’t end up with too hard a dough, not worrying (perjudicando) if some of the flour is not mixed in.
Once you’ve made the mixture, you grease the lebrillo and hour hands, and you continue kneading and adding fat until you have incorporated half (five ounces en la proporcion fijada). The other half will be needed in the other operations of kneading and to grease the sheets of tin on which you place the ensaimadas to be baked.
When the dough is well kneaded you form it into a ball and you put in in the greased bowl in such a way that the dough (masa) stays bien finita and not squashed down. Grease its surface and leave it to rise covering the bowl with with another upside down and over both of them a cloth.
I will explain–said the person who gave me the recipe–how and how many times the dough has to rise (fermentar). Let’s suppose that I had it kneaded and covered one night. As a general rule, the next day, you will find it’s risen a lot and I will knead it, leaving it well covered again. At midday I will find that it has risen again and I knead it again. By nighttime it has risen again, and I knead it again.
And the next day I make ensaimadas without kneading and put them on the baking sheets (planchas) placing them in boxes (cajones, cajas) or other containers so that they rise againand I put them in the oven.
If when you go to knead the dough the last time, you notice that it has risen a lot, you knead it and instead of letting it rest, you make the ensaimadas and you put them on the baking sheets so as to put them in the oven the next day.
There are two ways to make the ensaimadas. One consists in simply making a ball, squashing only a bit, because it will expand by itself. The other consists in taking a piece of dough, lengthening to form a cylinder, and rolling it then forming a torta (cake, presumably round cake-like shape).
Whichever system, the hand must be spread with lard. In the second, before putting the ensaimadas the the oven, you take a spoon and with it you raise the cracks which have formed rolling out the piece of dough, so that when it cooks they are not stuck together and the turns you have given it separate well.
There are another couple of paragraphs devoted to trouble shooting in cold weather and other methods of fermentation.
Some tentative conclusions.
1. Historic measurements are a bit tricky but an almud was apparently a volume measurement of about 4-!/2 liters. Using standard web sources, an almud here would have probably been about 4 pounds of flour. So 4 lbs flour, 10 ounces of sugar, 6-7 eggs and 4 ounces of fat.
2. The honorable Pedro never actually tried this recipe. The fat proportions don’t make sense as you work through the recipe. And the dough is extraordinarily heavy. I think the sugar is on the high side.
Here’s my dough after first mixing.
This was a very heavy dough indeed. Here it is after 24 hours.
I gave up at this point. Help please from better bakers among my readers.
3. This is an egg-enriched dough but with very little fat on any interpretation. More like a regular European celebration bread than the current ensaimada.
4. There is little sign of the flaky pastry with fat-separated layers that we now associate with Minorca and Mallorca. The nearest is the second way of making the pastry by making a cylinder into a cake which I take to mean a coiled pastry such as is now made.
5. In short, if Ballester’s recipe makes sense at all, in the 1920s in Minorca, ensaimada was a fairly standard enriched bread for special occasions or for breakfast for the well to do. It had little to do with the flaky pastries that are now sold in the islands and all over Spain as ensaimadas.
What am I missing?
Looks like a lot of instructions are left out, including how much lard is spread on the dough, “the hand must be spread with lard” isn’t very specific for instance.
In terms of “The other consists in taking a piece of dough, lengthening to form a cylinder, and rolling it then forming a torta (cake, presumably round cake-like shape). “, this is what I essentially do, but I also stretch the dough until it is a translucent sheet. I then put a dollop of lard on my hand and streak it across the sheet (which is what I think the instruction about the lard above means). Then the larded sheet is rolled up along its length, then this tube is coiled to form the ensaimada (“forming a tora” maybe?).
You need a high gluten flour, when I get home I will look up the exact proportions that I use for the recipe.
This is a description from a 1864 Spanish dictionary, there are also similar descriptions from other 19th century texts:
“ENSAIMADA. /. Bolo de forma espiral, feito á moda de Mayorca, que se usa geralmente para tomar chocolate”.
So I think that at least some early forms are similar to the modern form.
OK, in the modern recipe I use for 500 gm of strong flour there are 2 whole eggs, 250 ml milk and 2 Tbspn of fat in the dough. This gives a relatively stiff, but very elastic dough. When it is rolled out thin and stretched then formed into ensaimada etc, it rises quite a bit overnight.
To this dough 200 gm of lard is used to spread in on the pastry. I think that it is this latter fat that is not stated in amount in this recipe.
Also an almud is a varies a lot from region to region and period to period, so not sure of the exact amount in this case.
Adam,
Thanks for the thoughts. I’m up to my ears in stuff today so a proper reply later. But what really looms up and puzzles me is that Ballester says essentially nothing about making the layered texture that we think of as the identifying characteristic of ensaimadas, at least in the Balearic version. He’s pretty careful about asking questions and goes into all the detail about how to get the yeast started and (not included here) what to do if this goes wrong. You would think he would say “And how do you get those nifty layers?” But nothing except the ambiguous remark about untar-ing the mano.
My guess is that either there was no intention that the recipe would be used or that it was going to to be use by somebody with a lot of experience and knew what a Ensaimada was all about. I’m guessing the latter as it reads more like a Aide-mémoire then a modern recipe.
Yes, I agree with that Adam. But it still seems odd that he doesn’t ask about the key process–if it was the key process. I’m going to try your recipe and other modern recipes which I should have done long ago to see if that gives me any insight.
Even in modern Uber-pastry cookbooks, they tend to be very brief instructions. Essentially proportions of ingredients are given, but the actually instructions may simply be “make the pastry and cook until done”.
Then I should say that the ingredients are:
500gm strong flour
75 gm sugar
2 eggs
250 ml milk
2 Tbspn melted lard
salt
15 gm of fresh yeast or equivalent
Make the dough (mix it very well) allow it to raise once, knock it down and roll out into a long sausage. Roll the sausage out to give a long ribbon. Spread lard on this (about 200 gm), then carefully stretch the dough to paper thinness on a table (if you have a special floured table cloth for this, so much the better). Roll it up like a jelly roll, cut into lengths then coil these into the typical shape. Let raise overnight. Cook.
Hi,
Look up “ensaimada recipe” on google or marketmanila.com. I wrote the recipe after 50 years of making ensaimadas and I began making them in a bakery. I think Adam Balic is right about the lack of instructions for shaping and coiling being omitted in Pedro Ballester’s recipe.
Three hundred years of Spanish rule made ensaimadas an important pastry in the Philippines and one made with lard was common during fiestas, with the layers of pastry quite distinct. Now it is a more cakelike pastry, loaded with cheese.
Thanks.
Veda
Thanks Veda. I am still wondering why Pedro Ballester would have omitted what should have been the key steps in making a coiled, layered ensaimada. He was not a cook. But he was a keen recorder of island traditions. And he would not have needed to be a cook to think that was important.
Here’s a link to at least one of the posts on the marketmanila blog. http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/the-original-mallorcan-ensaimadas. So everyone seems agreed that ensaimadas in the Philippines transmogrified in the 1970s, changing from a layered coil made with lard to something more like a brioche.
By the way, I’m not surprised the El Corte Inglés (department store) ensaimada was not much good. The people I talked to in Minorca, which also prides itself on ensaimadas, were very sniffy about the stale ensaimadas for tourists, in airports, and, I suspect, by inference in the department store. I personally liked the flaky texture of the coiled, layered ensaimadas. And I did prefer them plain to filled.
I hope to go on to Puerto Rican ensaimadas soon.
I have read this thread with interest. I have been trying to find a recipe for ensaimada for years. The best ensaimadas I ever ate were in Ciutadella in Minorca from a baker at the end of the arcade on the main street. L meant to go back and wangle an invite to visit and see how the thing was done, but you know how it…
I have tried several recipes but they are never so light and good as those.
Janet, that’s the classic place in Minorca, isn’t it? I went there too and they were fantastic. Friends on the island advised me not to buy at the airport. Which recipes have you tried?
over the years quite a few rachel, but they are never quite right
Seems to me that this is one of those baked goods that probably takes years to master. I know I quail at the thought of rolling out those paper thin sheets and then coiling them. But then you may well be an experienced baker/pastry person.
I think I need to go back to Ciutadella, maybe we could talk our way into that bakery! Like all baking I guess its a skill that takes years to master. I wonder how they manage to get the taste of the lard without it being too greasy and cloying?
I have found a recipe for Philippino cheese ensaimada on page 364 of Charmaine Solomons Asian Cookbook…nothing like the Minorcan ones but an interesting recipe all the same.
I’ve watched ensaimada being made in Alaro at a very ancient bakery with a wood-fired oven: Ca Na Juanaineta. The lard comes from the Mallorcan black pigs (at least that’s the story). Juan, the baker makes about five kilos of very stretchy bread dough and rolls it out into a sheet about four centimetres thick and probably a metre long. He puts small lumps of lard on top, I’d guess about two kilos and folds the two long ends of the dough back to the middle and then together (as though he were making flaky pastry). He then rests, re-rolls, re-folds two or three times. Then he divides the dough into two pieces, each of which makes three ensaimadas. He rolls out a piece so it’s about a metre long and divides it into three long strips. He forms a loose catherine wheel with each one – it’s about 30 cm diametre. It’s rested (proved) and then baked (I’ve no idea of the oven temperature or time, but I’d guess cool from the colour which is pale, almost beige). dust with icing sugar.
This is from some sketchy notes, done about a year ago, so the information may be as dodgy as your Minorcan one
Re-reading Pedro Ballester’s recipe makes me think that the ensaimada and the early modern Italian recipes for a similar product can be connected.
When he says “forming a torta” does he mean “make a tart/cake” or does he use the word “torta” in the sense of twisted/rolled etc (like tortuoso). The latter would make sense given the recipe.
In Latin “Torta” means “twisted”, the etymology of “torta/tourte/tart” is unknown, maybe this connects them. Speculation: etymology of torta/tourte/tart originally refered to twisted pastry products in the Latin world.
The ensaimida like product from Scappi (16th century Italy) is called a “tortiglione” which is interperated as “twists”, rather then cakes. In a similar way in modern Veneto the dialect name for the Strudel is “Tortion” which means curved or twisted.
Ok, so the Romans did have a similar pastry. There is an important class of pastries called “Placenta”*, these are finely layered pastries of dough and filling. They were produced in various shapes, one shape given by Cato is a “Spira” (spiral). The description of making these spiral pastries is a bit confused, but I think that it would end up producing something like an ensaimada or a strudel. Would be nice to think that these Roman spira pastries were related to the late latin torta?
*This class of pastries was so widespread that it gave to name of placenta to the organ, due to its appearance which is like a flat cake. Apparently.
Adam and Michael,
My head is spinning with your fascinating comments. I know, I know, I keep saying I need a bit of time to reply. I do. More soon.
There’s a coiled Moroccan pastry called a “snake”, m’hanncha, stuffed with almond paste and an Auvergnat peasant pastry known as a “Serpent” that’s a kind of strudel. ..and there’s an English West Country relic of a cake, possibly from Frome, called a St Catherine’s cake that looks like an esaimada. I’ve baked the latter for a book on regional baking: 270g SR flour+1tsp bicarb., 3rounded tbs ground almonds, almond essence, 1/2tsp mixed spice, 220g butter, 220g caster sugar, 1 egg, 50g sultanas, icing sugar. Combine all the dry ingredients and work into a paste with melted butter and beaten egg. Divide the paste into six and roll each one out by hand into snakes about 2cm in diameter. Arrange them joined together in a spiral. Bake for about 20 mins at 200C. Cool and dust with icing sugar.
This isn’t a considered argument, but a flying kite. The family of European pastry baking has two parents: the solid cold climate generally dense pudding/cake/dough/short crust parent and the more subtle often lighter, Arab-inspired, generally sweeter pastry parent that derives from Moorish occupation of southern Europe boulstered by culinary trophies brought back by crusaders. Even though ensaimadas can only claim a written pedigree back to the 17th century, in style they are closer to the eastern ancestor.
Off topic: when Turks/kurds make yufka pastry (filo) they can have up to 40 layers being laminated on their oklava rolling pin at one time. I think the recipe for puff paste as it is today dates from the 16th century, perhaps earlier but, its ancestor is Middle Eastern.
I think that if this discussion on the history of ensaimadas has demonstrated one thing, it is that their is no solid evidence that it has anything to do with the Moors or even the Arab work directly.
The linguistic link just isn’t there are far as I can see. There “saim” element is a common western European term, being common in English until very recently. Even in Minorca it isn’t the only word for lard used. “Seu” is also common and is the same as word as used in Old French. Also were we get the English term “suet” from. Another issue that has to be considered is that not all ensaimdas are of the fine flakey and coiled type pastry. This is true of historical and extant recipes, in Balerics or outwith them.
There is no evidence continuity of tradition from the modern period to the Moorish presence in Spain. Medieval Catalan recipe books show no documentation of this food and nothing seems to turn up in any of the other liturature, so far. Not even any mention of a coiled pastry in fact. There is also nothing similar in the Moorish recipe collections that exist. The oldest M’hanncha recipe that I have seen uses Warkha pastry, this is a fine pastry, but make in a completely different manner to ensaimadas pastry.
Coiled pastries and layered coiled pastries seem to be a widespread phenomena within and outwith Europe. There is evidence for them going back to the Roman period. Are the tradions linked or have they been reinvented multiple times?
Endsaimadas could come from many different traditions.
To date there is no real evidence linking ensaimadas to any of them. Very fine flaky pastries are quite widespread in Southern France. A small selection of names is croustades, pastis, postis, tourtiere. According to Paula Wolfert at least one of these pastries is fasioned in the same way as the ensaimadas, rolled like up and then coiled like a serpent. In Quercy it is the “pastis”, in “Languedoc” it is “en cabessal” (the name of the spiral of cloth put on top of womens heads so they can carry things with relative comfort). Paula favours a Moorish culinary connection for the link between all of these pastries.
Personally I would love a link between the Moorish culinary sphere and the Ensaimadas to turn up, but there is just no evidence of it. The fact that there is more evidence that Modern Moroccan dishes like the Bestilla have European origins then Moorish, is mostly overlooked. The Baleric are a complete melting pot of culinary traditions. They produce gin and make bread and butter pudding (“puding”) as part of their culinary tradition, there is a linguistic link between “Ensaimadas” and “Saim Cake”, yet if an English origin for Ensaimadas was proposed it would be laughed off as a joke. Not so with the Magic word “Moorish”?
Also another comment. Charles Perry has mentioned many times that there is very little continuity in the Medieval Arabic recipes he has researched and extant Arabic/Muslim recipes. It is an interesting though. I can think of half a dozen exceptions, however, it is worth considering that transmission of a culinary aesthetic is not the same thing as trasmission of individual recipes. I think that there is a lot of confusion of these two different phenomena.
Query: there are thousands of internet sites stating that written evidence for Ensaimadas dates back to the 17th century. Has anybody seen this?
The nearest I have seen is “It is said that the first written documents with reference to the ensaimada date from the XVII century. Archduke Luis Salvador of Austria spoke about them in his volumes “Die Balearen” (and he probably ate them too).”
“Die Balearen” can’t be the source as it was published in the late 19th century by Archduke Louis Salvador of Austria (1847-1915).
Thanks for pointing that out Adam. I’d seen that claim repeated time and again too and meant to check it out. Are we going to end up concluding that ensaimadas in their present form were in fact created in the late nineteen century, like so many other “traditional” dishes?
No, ensaimidas existed prior to this period, I’ve posted several recipes from 1857 for instance. What I think is the case is that the iconic flaky layered form seems to be only on of several variations on the theme and it seems to become the dominate form from the late 19th century.
If you compare this recipe from Manila:http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/lasang-pinoy-7-ensaimada-part-ii-the-recipe
With the Pedro Ballester’s recipe, then things click into place. The dough is coiled but not layered, that’s why Ballester’s recipe doesn’t make sense initially as we were trying to make it into the layered recipe. The reason why you grease your hands is so that you can deal with the very sticky soft dough. It is the same thing really as what is called the Coca Bamba or Ensaimadas St Joan, depending on location.
My guess would be that the recipe taken to the Philippines was this non-layered type, in some cases the coil step has been taken out of the forming of the cake and that is all.
Actually some of the English speakers in the 19th century talk about all the different types of ensaimadas, with one type being descriped as a “biscuit”. So I actually think that “ensaimadas” is a term that refers to a whole range of pastries historically, with one form coming to dominate in the 20th century and with time it became the “true and tradional form”. Same story as the Cornish Pasty really.
Well I always thought it was odd Pedro Ballester left out the layering if that was crucial to ensaimadas. But we are now talking about the modern ensaimadas being a recent invention (well, a couple of generations at leas).
This is just the thread i was looking for. I love Ensaimadas, they are one of those things that leaves a lasting impression on you. I must have another !! :) Thanks to all the info i am going to have an interesting evening baking.
Let me know how it turns out?
@Adam Balic
With regards to post #20, that there is no linguistic link to the word “saim” and the Moorish/Arab language, I would like to point out, that there in fact is. The Arab/Moroccan word for fat or lard is sah’ma. The H in that word is one of those letters which isn’t used in other/European languages and is often substituted by either H or I.
I don’t know much about ensaimadas, I just stumbled upon your discussion.
The is no link in the sense that “Saim” is a common word throughout Europe to describe fat of one type or another. The “Saim” in ensaimadas has been said to derive from the Arabic, but it could just as easily be non-Arabic, as the element is very common and widespread from a Latin word for fat or fattiness, “sagimen”.
It is also a common enough word in English, now mostly spelt “seam”.
Shakespeare wrote: “Shall the proud Lord, That bastes his arrogance with his owne seame”
And an even more clear example of the definition in english from the 17th century is “Saime, which we pronounce sometimes Seame. It signifies not only Goose-grease, but in general any kind of Grease or Sewet or Oil…”
On the strength of linguistics the link of this pastry to a Moorish origin is just too weak, which is not to say that this could not be the case, but more evidence is required.
If I suggested that based on the linguistic link that the English introduced the dish (they did introduce a number of food and drink items to the region as it happens) nobody would take this seriously, so the same standards should apply universally.
I found the recipe of Pedro Ballester in the Time Life Book on Breadbaking, 1980 and I was very happy to read: use little yeast and let it rise a long time, more than two days. So I thought: that is the next bread for my site.
I have quite different questions from yours.
1. no salt added
2. dough rising for more than two days… How to preserve? Had the houses at that time a cool place?
Well, later on I found this beautifull site of Rachel Laudan.
There is the question of layers or not. I suppose this recipe is more like a brioche dough. Because: when you make layers of butter/fat in the dough, you should really preserve this dough in the fridge, otherwise the layers will really mix with the dough during the long rising time. As I don’t think people had a fridge in 1925, I think the dough was a sort of brioche dough.
Next question: long rising time.
I suppose this has to do with the using of sourdough and bearyeast, before the breadyeast became common, from about 1850. Sourdough and breadyeast need more time to develop and multiply, so I think that’s why the rising time is that long.
In these days it is well known that, the longer a dough rises, the more taste comes in the dough. So, a really up to date bread…
The origin.
Sunday bread and festive bread is everywhere enriched with sugar, fat, eggs.
The form is really beautifull. It might have connections with the Jewish Churek (Rhodos Sabbath Bread). This bread also has the spiral form.
Whether it comes from the muslims in Spain, than being picked up by the Sephardic Jews who might have taken it to other places outside Spain after 1492?
Well, anyhow Rachel, my breads tasted delicious. I made a moist dough (just added as much water as the dough could last). I have to excercise more in making thinner spirals, so the site will be continued.
Thanks for your interesting writings, greetings from a Duth farmerdaughter, Ineke Berentschot
I did not know the Ballester recipe was in the Time Life series. Interesting. I wonder if they changed it. Love your site and more comments soon. Just in from a long journey and all behind on lots of work.