Ensaïmada
Ensaïmades
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| Course | Pastry |
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| Place of origin | Spain |
| Region or state | Balearic Islands |
| Serving temperature | Cold |
| Main ingredients | Flour, water, sugar, eggs, mother dough, (reduced pork lard) |
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The ensaïmada (Catalan pronunciation: [ənsə.iˈmaðə], pl. ensaïmades; Spanish: ensaimada) is a pastry product from Mallorca, Spain. It is a common cuisine eaten in most former Spanish territories in Latin America and the Philippines. The first written references to the Majorcan ensaïmada date back to the 17th century. At that time, although wheat flour was mainly used for making bread, there is evidence that this typical pastry product was made for festivals and celebrations.
The ensaïmada de Mallorca is made with strong flour, water, sugar, eggs, mother dough and a kind of reduced pork lard named . The handmade character of the product makes it difficult to give an exact formula, so scales have been established defining the proportion of each ingredient, giving rise to an excellent quality traditional product. The name comes from the Catalan word saïm, which means 'pork lard' (from the Arab word , meaning 'fat').
In Mallorca and Ibiza there is a sweet called greixonera made with ensaïmada pieces left over from the day before.
Among the variants of ensaimada the most common are:
Ensaïmades produced far from the Balearic Islands of Spain usually taste very different, mainly because the same kind of reduced pork lard is not used outside these islands or the nearby areas with similar culinary traditions, like Valencia or Catalonia. To tell whether pork lard has been used, if one can't tell by taste, a true ensaïmada must stain a piece of paper with the pork lard (which when heated has a similar texture to oil).
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Wikipedia