one of the hardest things for me about traveling with three small children is not being able to go out to restaurants. on our recent trip to spain there were so many cool restaurants i wanted to go to, but couldn’t. i suppose that’s technically not true. we could have gone to restaurants. but the probability of misery at restaurants is high, especially when the hours are funky, the focus is on quality not speed, and the children are already on the cranky side from spending the entire day being culturally enriched at museums, cathedrals, and the like.
however, as most of you know from pat’s blog we still managed to try some spanish gastronomic delights. this somewhat, though not completely, made up for eating more oscar meyer hot dogs in five days than we had in the past two years. we bought a few (perhaps i use that term a tad loosely, haha) cheeses, some chocolates, world class ham and….drumroll…polvorons.
these cookies, which are a traditional spanish christmas cookie, were divine! the flavor was fairly mild, though rich, and the texture was quite crumbly. a bit like a shortbread cookie, only much more tender. the cookies practically melt in your mouth without really having to chew. so dangerous! they are made primarily with lard, sugar, eggs, and some sort of ground up nut. i’m not sure if it’s almonds or hazlenuts. the word on the ingredient list was ametlla torrada, which i can’t find a translation for. but from doing an internet search on polvorons i’m guessing it must be one of the nuts i mentioned.
i need to experiment a bit and try to make my own. i think this russian tea cake recipe will be a good starting point, though sadly it will probably be a while before i get the energy to try it. perhaps next christmas.
2 Responses to “polvorons”
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I love the idea of Russian tea cakes. I think I’d love them even though I know nothing about them and am pretty sure that I’ve never been exposed to any Russian food. Although…how can you go wrong with something that has the words tea and cake in it?
those look excellent. i’m loving these food reviews!