Ensaimadas

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 550 g flour
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cube of yeast
• 125 ml milk
• 125 ml water
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 3 m.-sized eggs
• 100 g butter
• 30 g butter, melted, for spreading
• Powdered sugar for dusting
• Flour for kneading and rolling out

Instructions

Working time approx. 50 minutes; Rest time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 13 minutes; Total time approx. 2 hours 33 minutes

Yeast pastry from the Balearic Islands, for about 10 yeast rolls

Mix the flour, salt, and powdered sugar thoroughly together. Gently warm the water and milk, then crumble in the fresh yeast and dissolve it completely. Add the yeast milk to the flour and knead with a mixer. While kneading, add the softened butter and eggs to the dough and knead everything thoroughly. Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place until it has noticeably increased in size. Knead the dough again with the dough hook of the mixer, cover it again and let it rise in a warm place for about 1/2 hour. After the proving time, the dough will be very soft and sticky and difficult to work with. This is necessary so that it retains a fairly fluffy consistency during further kneading, shaping, and baking into ensaimadas and does not become too hard or too firm. After proving, divide the dough into about 9-10 portions with floured hands. Shape each portion into a ball, cover, and set aside. Now roll out one ball of dough on a floured work surface with a floured rolling pin into a very thin strip of dough, approximately 5 cm wide and approximately 40 cm long. Roll this strip of dough together with both floured fingers until it forms a long, thin roll. Place the roll of dough in a spiral shape on a baking tray lined with baking paper. When folding it into a spiral, please ensure that there is always a small amount of space between the spirals, as the dough will continue to expand during baking. Now cover the ensaimadas and let them rise again for about 30 minutes at room temperature. In the meantime, melt 30 g of butter, preheat the oven to 200 °C and brush the yeast rolls with the melted butter just before baking. Bake the ensaimadas on the bottom rack of the oven for about 13 minutes. The pastries should be just a very light golden brown. Then place the snails on a wire rack to cool and, while still lukewarm, dust them thickly with powdered sugar. Ensaimadas are often eaten in Mallorca as a second breakfast with a cup of coffee. Tip: Preparing and baking ensaimadas correctly can be quite tedious due to the very soft, sticky dough. Therefore, patience and a bit of skill are required. Traditionally, ensaimadas in Mallorca are baked with lard, not butter. However, clarified butter or butter can also be used.