The Ensaimada Trail: Ensaimadas and Lardy Cake
In a thread on Dan Lepard’s great site on baking, Adam Balic raises possible connections between lardy cake and ensaimadas (en-larded things), in this case a type of sweet bread from the Balearic Islands. This is a topic that really interests me.
Lardy cake was a great treat at tea time when I was growing up in its home area of Wiltshire, England. It’s sticky and a bit chewy and utterly delicious. And no it doesn’t taste of (oh yuk!) lard, if by that you mean horrid. I still make it from time to time but usually when I have friends over because it’s best the same day. I do not roll out the dough paper thin as Adam does, something to follow up. (Incidentally the wikipedia article I’ve linked to is pretty inadequate. Dough cake, for example, is quite distinct from lardy cake).
Ensaimadas are all over Spain but their home base is in Mallorca and Minorca where they are now a huge tourist item, gussied up with lots of different fillings. The British owned Minorca for much of the eighteenth century. It was their big naval base in the Mediterranean. They left lots of traces, non-culinary (sash windows) and culinary (gin). So some kind of Balearic-British connection is certain possible. On the other hand putting lard and bread dough together is not exactly rocket science in places that love the pig. Today ensaimadas are made with dough rolled paper thin.
But then there are other questions.
Were ensaimadas always made with dough rolled paper thin? Why don’t ensaimadas show up in Mexico? Or in other parts of Latin America? Or do they under some other name? And why do ensaimadas show up in the Philippines? And why are they more like brioche there?
I think that the Wikipedia article has lumped together a number of rather different items, simply on the basis that they are pastries with lard.
I imagine that there is a wide range of these types of recipe where lard is found (Aberdeen Butteries, which despite their name are made with lard, being another example).
Flead cakes are another lard item from Wiltshire, in this case the flead (interenal pig fat) is chopped into small pieces and incorporated into a dough to produce something like a rough puff pastry (there is a similar thing made in Croatia from the little crunchy lumps left over from rendering lard). There are also sharley cakes, banbury cakes, eccles cakes, Coventry Godcakes ….which are similar, if usually made with butter now.
Infact I wonder if this is the origin of some of these recipes. There isn’t that much information availible for historic pastries as they usually were not included in cookbooks for the simile reason that they were made by bakers not cooks. Bakers didn’t publish their trade secrets in general.
A lot of the mordern recipes use butter, but butter was a pretty expensive item histroically (more expensive then meat in the 18th century). I wonder if a lot of these country recipes originally used lard and only recently swapped to butter. Seems to be the case for Aberdeen butteries.
Hmm, I had no idea about Aberdeen butteries. And I never encountered a flead cake in Wiltshire though they sound lovely. I suspect your conjecture about lard being widely used for breads and pastries is correct. And it is difficult to get information about historic baking. I will see if William Rubel has any ideas because he knows the French and English baking literature, such as it is, like the back of his hand.
Rachel,
I have a suggestion as to why ensaimadas may be indigenous to one locale in particular. I think it has to do with the flour. I think that the properties of the flour are very important in making “pan hojaldrada” (puff pastry) of any kind and they type of puff pastry that is used for ensaimadas requires strong flour with a high percentage of protein and a high capacity to absorb water. This allows the layers to be stretched very thin. I think that the high quality of ingredients may have been a limiting factor in the spread of the Mallorcan style pan hojaldrada. I also think Adam may have a clue in that ensaimadas need butter and so here in Mexico where you and I live the empanada was traditionally probably cheaper and easier to make and also very forgiving regarding the type of flour used.
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my grandfathers shop in salisbury used to sell doughcake which was made from pigs lard.
my uncle has the recipe.As a girl i used to visit the shop and can remember it had mixed peel in it. we used to have this toasted with thick butter. not for the faint hearted.
My goodness, Julia. I grew up outside Salisbury. What was the name of your grandfather’s bakery?
But we never toasted our lardy cake.
I love “ensaimadas”! I grew up in Puerto Rico and in the island they are called “Mallorcas” I know a couple of websites where you can buy them online.
Coral, that’s so interesting that they are called mallorcas in Puerto Rico. Do you have links to the web sites where you can buy them?
I’m from the Philippines. My country was colonized by the Spaniards for 333 years if I’m not mistaken. Most likely that’s the reason why ensaimada got to the Philippines. High end ensaimadas here are very soft and topped with grated cheese (queso de bola aka edam cheese), whipped butter and granulated white sugar. The cheap ones found in small bakeries (located in remote towns aka barrios) were often tough and smeared with margarine and also dredged in sugar. They’re also small compared to the expensive ones. I don’t taste any pork lard in our ensaimadas. I haven’t tried the Spanish ensaimadas which they say has pork lard. I make ensaimadas too but only for home consumption.
Analyn, Thanks for the comments. Few things interest me more than the connection with the Philippines. And your comment really helps fill out what happened there.
In my opinion, ensaimadas in the Philippines are brioche like because most Filipinos are fond of soft breads. Take for example our Pan de Americano (American Bread aka the white Pullman bread), it’s soft unlike the breads of Italy which are hard and crusty. I think now Filipinos are more adventurous in choosing their breads. We can eat scones, focaccia, baguette even though they’re not the ones we are used to. Ensaimadas are expensive too here because of the butter.
I think most people in the world wanted soft breads. Then when they became available they backed off and said they wanted crusty breads. Does this ring any bells?