With the permission of nougat and marzipan, polvorones and mantecados are the indisputable kings of the Christmas sweet tray. As our colleague Carmen Tía Alia confessed to us in her infallible polvorones recipe, a new world opens up for your taste buds when you try one of good artisanal quality. Very similar in appearance and texture, both delights are confused often and it is not so easy to determine how they differ.
It usually happens that the products of eating and drinking of popular origin make difficult to trace its origin or narrow a definition. We rarely have 100% reliable sources that indicate a specific birth or exclusive authorship under a single recipe.
The issue in the case that concerns us today can be settled in a very summarized way by stating that Polvorón is a type of shortbread and of creation -or expansion- much more recent. Let’s say that the mantecado is the original primitive sweet, under different variants, that gave rise to the polvorón and its different cousins. And precisely with so many varieties, the formulas are intermixed again, feeding the confusion between one and the other.
The shortbread was born from the shortbread
heading to the dictionary We can make little clear of the Royal Academy this time.
It says of the mantecado, after the first meaning as an adjective (“buttery”) in disuse:
m. Bun kneaded with lard. m. Composed of milk, eggs and sugar with which an ice cream is made. F. Kind of bun made of flower flour, eggs, sugar and cow butter, which is usually cooked in a small paper mold. F. Slice of bread spread with cow’s butter and sugar.
And define the powder as:
[De pólvora ‘partículas a que se reduce una cosa sólida’ y -ón1]. m. Cake, usually small, made of flour, butter and sugar, baked in a strong oven and that crumbles into dust when eaten.
The shortbread had no Christmas origin
Tracing the historical sources, and leaving aside dubious myths and legends alluding to a supposed discovery of shortbread by Christopher Columbus, Ana Vega Pérez «Biscayenne» investigates a possible predecessor of the Christmas sweet called on several occasions keep yourselfvery similar to the recipe of some hold on that the cook Cristoforo de Messisbugo left written in 1549 in his work ‘Banchetti, compositioni di vivande et apparecchio generale’. It also aptly alludes to heirloom recipes. Hispanic Muslim that have left such an influence on our culture, with hand-kneaded sweets made from toasted wheat flour, honey, oil and spices.
But the mantecado begins to appear more as it is known today in the Andalusian popular cuisine, especially from the 19th century, as a way to take advantage of surplus wheat flour and lard. And yet, the first written reference takes us to Morón de la FronteraSeville, with the Tortas de Morón and the Tortas de Polvorón signed by María Rosa Calvillo de Teruel in 1740.
The first being a very simple sweet based on flour, butter and sugarwith sesame seeds, shortbread cakes have remained a specialty of the area that adds eggs to the dough and which is also not consumed only at Christmas, as Miriam García tells us in her recipe.
With this background, we must break a spear in favor of steppe as a cradle one of the first mantecados and polvorones as we conceive them today, or at least their popularization and expansion. As we already told some time ago, the most famous original mantecados, those of the La Colchona company, were pioneers in the method of toast the flour previously thanks to the inventiveness of its author, Mrs. Micaela, to provide the “mantecates” with greater durability.
By removing moisture from the dough, the shortbread acquired a tighter and firmer texture on the outside, creamy on the inside, and were easier to store and transport. Taking advantage of the fact that her husband was a merchant, they began to sell their sweets in the region and soon acquired a reputation that was not long in being replicated, although the prestige of the originals continues to this day, as La Colchona continues to make its mantecados that are currently faithful to the recipe. original.
You will recognize them by the almond
Disputes between Antequera and Estepa aside, the truth is that these are the mantecados and polvorones that enjoy product recognition with Protected Geographical Indication. But throughout our territory, and beyond the seas, we find other variants.
Similar but with their subtle differences, we can see sweets in family recipe books, artisan workshops and convent and monastic orders similar names and formulas: manchego shortbread, shortbread from Murcia, Danielitos from Cónchar, the snow-capped Mexican polvorones and the curious cinnamon and anise cakes, etc.
What is clear is that the original sweet, the primitive mother of all of them, was the simplest ice cream, based on lard, flour and sugar, without being tied to the holidays. Around the beginning of the 20th century, the polvorón appeared as a Christmas specialty in which a new contender entered, the almondChristmas ingredient par excellence.
The ground almond modifies the texture and slightly the flavor of the dough, giving it a consistency that is just thicker. sandy or earthybut depending on the degree of toasting and kneading -and its quality- it provides a more oily and creamy touch, as he already told DAP the pastry chef Ricardo Vélez. He also mentioned this aspect Fatima Gisnerowho emphasizes the importance that the polvorón should not be a lump or crumble at the slightest contact.
The most purist ice cream does not contain almonds
The most ice cream genuine It is only made up of toasted wheat flour, sugar and lard -usually Iberian-, often flavored with ground cinnamon and covered with sesame seeds and toasted sesame.
Since they became popular as a Christmas sweet, with a multitude of workshops and companies springing up throughout Spain, mantecados and polvorones have also succumbed to the various variants that they seek to offer wider range of flavors. Thus we have shortbreads that also incorporate almonds, but to a lesser extent, and varieties of both with other nuts (hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts) and ingredients such as coconut, lemon or cocoa to make them chocolate.
We can also imitate the texture and flavor of these sweets with recipes without glutenfor example with corn polvorones, or suitable for vegetarians and vegans -and free of cholesterol- with mantecados and shortbreads in olive oil, although its name seems paradoxical. After all, we are not very sure if its name refers to the butter itself, or to its buttery texture. Be that as it may, that everyone enjoys them to their liking.
El Toro – Case of 900 grams Polvorones el Toro – Pastry and Sweets Galicia – Valladolid (Tordesillas) – made with wheat flour – preferential consumption 9 months
Mantecados Felipe II Escorial Confitería Blancanieves Tejedor – 300 g
Photos | PGI Mantecados and polvorones from Estepa
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