{3} Pasteles de Gloria

These might have the most amazing name of anything I’ve made – it translates as “glory cakes” which is really promising quite a lot! Sounds like a brag someone might make after working out, no? Anway, these little guys come from Spain, which can be relied on to deliver a delicious array of Christmas goodies. I think this may be to do with the tradition of nuns in monasteries making sweet treats to sell to the local populace, or more likely well-heeled pilgrims.

Last year I made Cordiales de Murcia which are marzipan filled with angel hair pumpkin jam. Glorias are similar and are filled with a thick sweet potato jam with a dash of cinnamon. Making this filling is actually a complete breeze – you’re not really making a jam which must set, but more of a thick paste. You just pop a large sweet potato in the oven, bake it until soft, then scrape out the flesh and cook it with sugar and cinnamon until it is bright orange, thick, very sweet and all in all quite jolly-looking.

It also seems that glorias go by a few names, and a couple of really interesting ones were tetilla de monja and teta de vaca. The latter means cow’s teat and I’ll leave you to guess that the former refers to in the context of nuns(!). You can begin to see why they are generally referred to by their glory cakes moniker.

Making the filling and marzipan is easy, but I must admit that I did find shaping them a little bit tricky, and it took me a couple of attempts to find the best way to do it. In the end, what really worked for me was to find a really small bowl, line it with a piece of plastic film, then put a ball of marzipan in it. I added another piece of cling film, then pressed down so that you get a “cup” shape with the marzipan. Then the cling film slips right off, you can add some filling, and then tease the edges together to seal the gloria. Then you lift the cling film out, gloria still inside, then gather the top and twist. Hey presto – they look neat! I do recommend playing a little bit with the marzipan and perfecting your technique. Once I’d made two or three, I got the knack of it, so don’t worry if the first few are not perfect. They will be dusted with icing sugar, which will reliably cover a multitude of sins!

When it comes to baking, you’re really looking to set the marzipan rather than turn it golden-brown, so do watch them carefully while baking. They will also be quite firm and rather dry, possibly even a little crisp when they come out the oven, but store them in an airtight tin for a couple of days and they will soften up nicely.

To make Pasteles de Gloria (makes 20)

For the filling

• 1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes (to give 250g cooked flesh)
• 150g caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the marzipan

• 250g ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 large egg whites, beaten
• zest of 1/4 lemon

1. Make the filling. Set the oven to 200°C (400°F). Prick the sweet potato, then put in the oven and bake until it is soft. You should be easily insert a knife. This will take 45-60 minutes. When done, remove from the oven, cut the potato in half and scoop out the flesh – you want 250g of cooked sweet potato.

2. Put the cooked sweet potato flesh in a saucepan, and use an immersion blender to make a completely smooth puree. Add the sugar and cinnamon and mix well – it will look a bit more transparent and seem slightly wetter. Cook over a medium heat for around 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until you have a thick paste. Drop a small amount on a plate – it should be fairly firm. Remove from the heat, leave to cool completely, then cover and leave overnight in the fridge.

3. Make the marzipan. 1. Make the marzipan mixture. Combine the ground almonds, almond extract, sugar and lemon zest. Mix well, then add one beaten egg. Mix, and then add enough of the second beaten egg to make a marzipan. It should be soft enough to work with, but not wet or sticky. I used just over half of the second egg. If you add to much egg, just add equal amounts of almonds and sugar to get a texture you can work with.

4. The next day, time to make the pasteles. Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F). Line a baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

5. Pinch off walnut-sized pieces of the marzipan (or weigh them – mine were 25g each). Flatten the marzipan between two pieces of plastic film, then add about half a teaspoon of the sweet potato filling. Fold the marzipan around the jam, seal, and roll into a ball between your palms.

6. Place the ball on the baking sheet, and repeat until all the marzipan has been used up. You might find you have some filling left.

7. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes – the cookies should look dry on the surface but not browned. Remove from the oven and leave to cool

8. To serve, dust with icing sugar. Don’t go crazy – pasteles de gloria are pretty sweet, so you’re dusting for effect more than anything.

{8} Broas Castelares

I’ve looked for quite a long time for a Christmas recipe for Portugal. I’ve found ideas galore from Spain and Italy, but for some reason I wasn’t seeing anything from the Lusophere. That is, until now.

I’ve made little sweet potato cakes called broas castelares. The name means “Castile corn breads” and they are named after their creators, the Castelar brothers who ran a bakery called the Confeitaria Francesa, or French Patisserie, in Lisbon. It was founded in 1860 and stood in the Rua do Ouro, or “Street of Gold”, which I think is rather fitting given the colour of these cakes.

Now I say “cakes” but this recipe is a very different way of baking to the festive recipes I have tried before. This is based on sweet potato puree, which I made by roasting some sweet potatoes and scooping out the tender flesh. I thought this would give a better flavour than boiling as it would keep (and perhaps even concentrate) their flavour. Then you mix this with sugar, and the whole lot turns from sort-of-fluffy mash into a gloopy, soupy mass – I’ve seen this before making a Scottish potato-based sweet, and it seems odd that you can add dry sugar to something and it seems to get wetter!

I saw a few different versions of this recipe with different amounts of sugar. These seemed to split into Portuguese recipes and then those from everyone else. The home of Fado makes extremely liberal use of sugar, so I figured that it was safe to assume these little guys were going to be on the sweet side. This expectation was further supported by lots of non-Portuguese bakers trying to cut down the amount of sugar. Choices, choices. In the end, I decided to plump for a more authentic Portuguese version. This is a Christmas sweet after all! The version I went with came from the website of Lisbon City Council. Surely these guys would get it right?

The actual recipe is fascinating – the base is sweet potato (the orange ones, not the white ones) that you turn into a basic jammy paste. Then you mix in eggs, and add a veritable cornucopia of other nice things – ground almonds, cornmeal, coconut and orange zest. Some of the recipes suggested adding cinnamon to taste – I skipped this, but I think this could be a nice addition. You then end up with one of the stickiest doughs I’ve worked with. You leave it to chill overnight, and I thought the dry ingredients would have soaked up some of the liquid and made a thicker dough. I was wrong. The next day, it was slightly thicker but still seemed to be as sticky! But the way to deal with this is to have a plate with some neutral oil on it, and keep your hands well-coated. Any by coated, I mean pressing your palm into it, pretty often as it turned out. Then nothing sticks!

Shaping the broas was easy, provided you are making liberal use of that oil. Take a tablespoon of the mixture, roll to a ball, then form into an oval shape – I noticed that longer, slimmer ovals kept their shape better than shorter, fatter ones. The skinny ones set and keep their shape, the more squat ones seemed to spread more. Then make (or try to make) a little dent in the middle so they look like golden giant coffee beans. They are then finished with an egg yolk glaze, and baked in a hot oven.

And how do they taste? Amazing! I expected something more cake-life and reminiscent of cornbread, albeit sweet, but in fact they are more like marzipan, so I would call them a type of candy rather than a bread or a cake. As I expected, they are extremely sweet – sweet, sweet, sweet! Delicious, but for me this is something you want to eat with strong coffee or tea, rather than with mulled wine unless you’re the sort of person that wants to embrace hyperglycemia. The good thing is you can serve a tray of these and be confident that people will self-police and no-one will scoff the lot.

I hope you like this. I wasn’t sure I would and I am completely convinced. Obrigado e feliz natal!

To make Broas Castelares (makes around 40-45)

For the dough

• 1 large or 2 medium sweet potatoes (at least 500g), to yield 400g cooked flesh
• 700g soft brown sugar
• 125g ground almonds
• 50g desiccated coconut
• 125g cornmeal (fine polenta, not corn starch)
• 75g plain flour
• 3 medium eggs
• Zest of 1 orange

To finish

• vegetable oil, for your hands to work the dough
• 2 beaten egg yolks, to glaze
• tablespoon of water

1. Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Prick the sweet potato, then put in the oven and bake until it is soft. You should be easily insert a knife. This will take 45-60 minutes. When done, remove from the oven, cut the potato in half and scoop out the flesh – you want 400g of cooked sweet potato.

2. Put the cooked sweet potato flesh in a saucepan, and mash it. Do this manually – if you use a blender it may affect the texture. Add half the sugar and mix – it will look a bit transparent and become wetter. Cook over a medium heat for around 5 minutes, stirring constantly. It is done when you pull a wooden spoon across the base and leaves a clean trail that holds for a few seconds. Remove from the head and leave to cool to lukewarm.

3. Put the potato mixture in a large bowl. Add the eggs, and mix well. Stir in the remaining sugar, ground almonds, coconut, orange zest, flour and cornmeal. Mix to a smooth batter – it will be thick but sticky. Cover and chill overnight.

4. The next day, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Prepare a few sheets of greaseproof paper and rub each with some vegetable oil.

5. Get your hands covered with vegetable oil, and keep some extra within easy reach to re-coat your hands as needed. Take a tablespoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Now shape into a long oval between your palms. Place on the greaseproof paper, then flatten and make a dent in the centre so they look a bit like coffee beans. Repeat until the sheet is covered – they will spread slightly so leave at least 5cm between them.

6. Make the glaze – mix the two egg yolks with a tablespoon of cold water, and mix well.

7. Slide the tray under the paper, then glaze the broas. I found it best to do this just before baking, and really get in around the sides and base as this seems to help them keep their shape. Bake for 15 minutes – the top might look mottled and very dark in some places, but this is normal. Leave for a moment to cool and set, then transfer to a wire tray.

Note: the broas are a little crisper on the outside when they are fresh, but will soften if you store them overnight in an airtight container.

{5} Truchas de Navidad

One of my favourite Christmas songs is Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano (which you can listen to here, complete with a warming log fire video). I love a bit of Latin flair at this time of year, and Spain definitely has a fantastic selection of sweet treats, from nutty turrón and aniseed biscuits to marzipan cookies, but one of the most unusual that I have come across are truchas de navidad – or Christmas trouts – from the Canary Islands.

The surprise here is the filling…these little pastries are filled with sweet potato! This is flavoured with cinnamon, lemon and aniseed, but you’re basically eating potato pasties. Mmmmm…

I like sweet potatoes, but oddly I don’t tend to actually cook or bake with them that often. I was not sure exactly what to expect when I was making the filling, but the cooked sweet potato flesh is gloriously orange, and when you add sugar, ground almonds, aniseed, cinnamon and lemon zest, the flavour is rich and reminded me a little of marzipan. You might think that comes from the almonds, but ground almonds lack that characteristic “bitter almond” flavour, which leads me to think that it much be the combination of aniseed, cinnamon and lemon zest which is tricking the tastebuds. This might also be the point – a quick and easy local substitute on the Canary Islands back in the good old days. Maybe this is true, maybe I’m just making it up, so don’t quote me on that!

I made these truchas using a shortcrust pastry with a little bit of baking powder to provide some lift, and then baked them in the oven. This is certainly the easiest way to make them, but if you prefer, you can also cook them empanada-style by frying them in hot oil. And if puff pastry is your thing, then use that instead of shortcrust for even lighter pastries (and…you can just buy it and skip the whole “make your own pastry” business!). I suspect that these would be really rather tasty in their fried incarnation, and probably closer to the treats enjoyed in Spain.

Finally, if you’re all tired out of those mega-recipes that make many, many more cakes, cookies or pastries than you realistically need, you can of course just skip the whole detailed recipe and make just a couple of these truchas “inspired” by it. If you’ve got some spare pastry, just mash a little sweet potato, add sugar and almond plus spices to taste, and make just a few of them. Quick, easy, and no-one needs to know that you didn’t make a huge batch! All the more time to enjoy the soothing lyrics of Feliz Navidad!

To make Truchas de Navidad (makes 20-25)

For the pastry

• 500g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 50g icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• cold water

For the filling

• 400g sweet potatoes (the orange type)
• 100g ground almonds
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon aniseed extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground aniseeds
• zest of a lemon
• 125g sugar

To finish

• 1 egg white, beaten

1. Make the pastry. Mix the flour and the baking powder. Add the butter and work with your hands until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add enough cold water to make a dough – it should be soft but not stick. Wrap in cling film and leave to chill in the fridge for an hour or overnight.

2. Make the filling. Either bake the potatoes whole until soft and then scoop out the flesh, or peel, chop and steam until tender. Leave to cool and weigh out 400g of sweet potato. Transfer to a bowl and mash manually (don’t use a food processor – it will become gloopy!). Add the rest of the filling ingredients and mix well.

3. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

4. Roll out the pastry to 1/4 cm thickness, then cut out 8cm diameter discs of pastry (the pastry is much easier to work with when cold, so try to keep it as cool as possible). Put a scant teaspoon of the potato mixture in the middle of each. Moisten the edges of the pastry disc, them fold in half. Press the edge lightly to seal, crimp the edges with a fork, and put on the baking tray.

5. Beat the reserved egg white with a teaspoon of water and use to glaze the top of each trucha.

6. Bake the truchas for around 10-15 minutes until lightly golden. When done, remove from the oven and dust liberally with icing sugar. Enjoy them warm – from the oven, or reheat quickly in the microwave before serving.

Sweet Potato Wedges

Autumn is now with us. The mornings might be bright, but there is that unmistakable crispness in the air that signals things are about to get a lot “fresher” in the coming weeks, and the evenings are getting dark very quickly. Sure, it might still feel warm if you’re in a sunny spot, but when you’re in the shade, or a breeze blows past, you feel just how nippy things are getting.

With the chaos of moving house almost at an end, I’ve finally been back in the kitchen. All of a sudden, my cooking has moved away from the salads of summer, and quick, light suppers, and into much more substantial fare. Lentil dishes with lots of spices, curries, baked squash, soups, fritters…it’s the time of year to batten down the hatches and do all you can to fend off the cold weather that is approaching. It’s not a conscious change on my part, but there are certain dishes the you just have a craving for as the seasons roll by. I have, however, resisted the urge to buy Christmas pudding, even if my local shop has decided that this is exactly what we want to eat in October.

In much of my cooking at this time of year, I use a lot of spices, and I take a heavy-handed approach. I somehow feel that lots of cumin, pepper, ginger, garlic and sambal will help to fight off the sniffles during the colder months. It might work, it might not, but it certainly makes things a lot more tasty. It’s also worth getting a little more creating in how you season things – one of my current favourites is ground allspice, which is very common in sweet treats like biscuits and gingerbread, but it adds an interesting dimension to savoury dishes too.

It was with all this in mind that I got round to trying something that was on my “to make” list for quite some time. I love sweet potatoes baked and topped with feta, so I expected great things when they were spiced and baked as wedges.

Pleasingly, these are very, very simple to make – nothing much more than peeled sweet potato, cut to size, then tossed in oil with some spices, and then baked. They also have the benefit of looking very impressive – a jolly autumnal bust of orange when freshly cut, turning a deeper colour after baking. They can also be prepared hours ahead of time and left in the spice mixture to marinade (if it is possible to marinade potatoes?), and make a great snack or side dish. However it is the spices that take these from so-so to wow-wow. The spices you use are completely up to you – I went with some personal favourites (allspice, paprika, curry powder, black pepper and cumin). A tasty little dish as the long nights draw in.

As you can see below, these wedges hold their shape rather nicely too after being baked in a hot oven.

To make sweet potato wedges:

• 2 large sweet potatoes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• spices – select 5, and use 1/2 teaspoon of each(*)

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C (420°F).

2. Peel the potatoes. Cut lengthways into eight wedges, then slice each wedge diagonally (so each potato provides 16 pieces).

3. In a large bowl, combine the olive oil and spices. Mix well, then add the potato wedges.

4. Transfer the coated wedges to a tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 30-40 minutes until you can insert a knife easily, and the wedges are just stating to brown at the edges.

5. Serve immediately with the dip of your choice.(**)

(*) For the spices, I used allspice, paprika, curry powder, black pepper and cumin. And then I cheated and added some dried thyme too.

(**) I served these with a sprinkle of salt, and a dip made from tahini, yoghurt, sambal and lime juice.

Baked Sweet Potato with Feta and Spring Onion

I have always liked the idea of sweet potatoes (or yams). They taste great and have a brilliant orange colour when cooked, but so often they don’t taste quite right when you switch them for normal potatoes in dishes. This is probably because of their sweetness, which can seem odd in otherwise savoury foods.

A while back, I finally hit upon a way of cooking them which works brilliantly, is really simple and tastes delicious. I know this might not seem very exciting, but I think it is. Just peel them, rub in oil, cover in foil and then bake in a hot oven. That’s it! This makes the outside caramelise, while the inside stays soft and moist. It also means that you don’t have the skin afterwards. I am happy to eat potato skins normally, but I just don’t like them on sweet potatoes. No logic to that! The whole cooking-in-foil business is, in my view, necessary, as they can otherwise dry out and the skin can go a little tough.

The magic here comes with the topping – cook up a few spring onions in a pot, jazz it up with a little spice of your choice, then allow to cool and combine with some feta. Then top off with a a few uncooked spring onions and a little extra feta, plus whatever else you like (I used sumac powder and black onion seeds, as I happened to have these in the store cupboard, but feel free to go wild with what you have). The taste is sensational – the very salty cheese and the sweet/savoury flavour of the onions works well with the warm, sweet flesh of the potatoes and tastes sublime. The spices then dance around in the background, supporting the main show. Really tasty, for summer or winter, and very, very easy to make. Sure, they sit in the oven for a while, but you don’t need to spend more than five minutes in the kitchen.

To serve 2:

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• 4 spring onions
• 150g feta cheese, crumbled
• olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground sumac (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon black onion seeds (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).

Prepare the potatoes – peel them and rub each lightly in olive oil. This will prevent discolouration, and improves the surface during cooking. Wrap each in foil, place in the oven, and cook for around 1 hour, until the potatoes are soft and you can easily insert a skewer. If you like extra crispness, once the potatoes are cooked, remove from the foil, place on a baking tray and put back in the oven for 5 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the topping. Finely slice the spring onions diagonally. Add three-quarters of the chopped spring onions to a saucepan with a spoonful of olive oil, and cook until soft but not brown. Add salt, pepper and cumin (if using). Allow to cool, then add three-quarters of the feta. Mix well. However, if feeling lazy, don’t bother cooking the spring onions – just put all of them them in a bowl with oil, salt, pepper, cumin and all the feta. Mix, then use. Easy!

Split the cooked potatoes in two. Divide the topping across each half of the potato, then add some of the reserved feta and spring onions. Finish off with a sprinkling of sumac and black onion seeds (if using), and a final drizzle of olive oil.

Worth making? This is both easy and makes a sophisticated taken on the baked potato. I’ve successfully varied it with different spices, or by adding a little strong cheddar. Halloumi could also work. Just be sure to use a cheese that packs a punch, so that it simultaneously stands up to and complements the sweetness of the potatoes. Yum!