Every Easter and Christmas, my father hands me a package of biscuits from Tata (French for aunt) Emmie as I'm heading home with leftovers and a sugared-up child. I receive this package gratefully, sending a text the next day to Tata Emmie, Dad's eldest sister and maker of said biscuits, then enjoy them over the coming days as I recover from festivities and the excitement of a 6-year-old with his mountain of presents.
The package contains two types of Spanish biscuits: mantecados (crumbly, dry Christmas biscuits laced with cinnamon and traditionally made with lard or manteca) and rosquitos (aniseed-flavoured shortbread made year-round). They are little mouthfuls of joy with an afternoon cup of tea on those languid days between Christmas and New Year, or when the Easter chocolate isn't cutting it.
The biscuits were a little different this year; the rosquitos were subtly flavoured with orange and without their usual scent of aniseed. There was also a variety made with sweet potato, which piqued my curiosity.
I called Tata Emmie recently and asked if I could come over and make them with her. She sounded happy, and said it was a good idea because she and my father's other sister, Connie, would die one day and so would the recipes. I laughed nervously at her bluntness. We organised a date.
Going to Tata Emmie's is like stepping into my childhood. My grandmother had also lived here for many years and my sister and I had spent many a rainy day creating elaborate Barbie homes with our cousins in the rumpus room. We'd also had large Christmas Eve celebrations here, before the family expanded and eventually drifted from each other, as new generations came into being and the great, growing sprawl of Melbourne made travel from one end to the other less appealing.
Mantecados, fresh out of the oven. Source: Danielle Dominguez
My father taught me to make these.
Not long after I arrive, Tata gets to work in her no-nonsense way, armed with bags of flour and baking trays. "My father taught me to make these", she says, as she gently combines the flour and sugar for the mantecados, "in the commission flats with all of us there". She explains that "all of us" was a Spanish contingent that included Tata Connie, Grandma and other aunties and family friends.
"It was trial and error", Tata Emmie adds, as I try to picture Grandpa and a band of women in a cramped commission flat kitchen, speaking loud, rapid Spanish and huddling together to examine the texture of a freshly baked mantecado. Grandpa as baker was not an easy visual to conjure; he was a gruff, practical man who was more prone to saving snake-bitten fingers, as he did for my father in rural Morocco.
Tata Emmie rolling out rosquitos, using the extra flour hack. Source: Danielle Dominguez
It was trial and error.
I learn that in Casablanca, Grandpa had worked with Grandma's brothers in their baking factory. He had found himself in Casablanca after two prison escapes, and it was here that he met Grandma, she herself born in the then-French Morocco, also of Spanish heritage. Together they baked all manner of Spanish delicacies, including those particular to Valencia, the region of Grandma's parents. Grandpa had also been born in Valencia, raised on a farm by his mother and politician father, until the civil war broke out and he was captured and sent to a prison camp in what was Spanish Morocco, never to see his family again.
Tata Emmie recalls Grandpa recreating many a Spanish recipe after arriving in Australia. Returning to Spain was not an option, but here he lived peacefully in a small Spanish enclave, baking biscuits from the memory of what he had gleaned in the bakery and cooking up paellas reminiscent of those from his youth, long before war and journeys across oceans.
Tata Emmie rolling out rosquitos atop the ironing board, where she likes to work. Source: Danielle Dominguez
I learn there is no one way of making a mantecado: some are infused with cacao or topped with sesame seeds, with or without the slight pork flavour of lard. Rosquitos also differ, Tata Connie frying hers to become a sort-of doughnut; Tata Emmie varying hers with orange for a Valenciana touch. The baton hasn't quite been passed, and I'll still look forward to Tata Emmie packages, but I now have these precious recipes from which to test my own variations, as I imagine Grandpa should have liked.
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Mantecados
Makes 70–80 biscuits
Ingredients
- 1 kg plain flour
- 500 g sugar
- 500 ml rice bran or vegetable oil
- Cinnamon to dust
Method
1. Preheat an oven to 200˚C and line two to three biscuits trays with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl, add the flour and sugar and whisk well to combine. Add the oil and stir until a dough begins to form, then either turn the dough over onto a clean surface or leave in the bowl (if a wide bowl) and knead the ingredients until just combined and the dry ingredients have been absorbed. Be careful not to overmix.
3. Taking small portions of the dough, roughly enough for a small meatball, and form small biscuits shapes that are almost square, but with rounded edges and flat tops and bottoms. Place each one on a prepared tray, leaving just a little space between each biscuit. Add a generous sprinkling of cinnamon to each biscuit.
4. Bake for about 15–20 minutes, checking the biscuits after 10 minutes and then watching carefully to ensure they don't dry out. They should have a crack in the top and appear cooked through. They should be golden underneath but not on top. Use a knife to wedge underneath a biscuit and check. Once cooked, place on a wire rack to cool.
Note
- Typically lard (manteca) is used, but as Tata Emmie is not a fan she opts for the vegetarian alternative, using rice bran or vegetable oil. For a more traditional version that is not vegetarian, use approximately 2 cups of high-quality lard.
Rosquitos
Makes 80–100 biscuits
Ingredients
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp aniseed
- 1 kg self-raising flour
- ½ kg plain flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 6 eggs
- 1–2 tbsp aniseed-flavoured liqueur, such as Anís, Anisette, or Ouzo (used by Tata Emmie)
- 1 tsp aniseed essence
- 1 tsp lemon rind
- 1 ½ cups milk
- Icing sugar to dust
Method
1. Preheat an oven to 200˚C and line two to three biscuits trays with baking paper.
2. Melt the butter and aniseed in a small saucepan on medium heat, being careful not to burn the butter. Turn off once melted and the butter has just begun to bubble, then set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the flours and sugar until well combined. Add the eggs, liqueur, essence and rind, and gently stir with the dry ingredients. Gradually add the milk and stir, then once too difficult to mix with a spoon, begin working the mixture by hand until a thick dough has formed.
4. Now apply a Tata Emmie hack, moving the dough to one side of the bowl and adding a little extra flour to the other side, so that you can dip portions of dough into the flour before rolling out to form each biscuit, making it more manageable.
5. Once the dough is pliable but not too sticky, take small pinches of dough and roll out into 1 cm thick log, using the base of the palms of your hands to roll smooth logs. Then, take your log and form a circle, folding one end gently over the other, like delicate doughnuts.
6. Bake the biscuits in batches until they are well golden underneath and just golden on the top. Keep a large plastic bowl or container ready and tip the cooked biscuits straight into the bowl from the oven. Dust each batch with a fresh batch of icing sugar. These are best eaten cold but are rather lovely straight out of the oven.
Notes
- For a Valencia-flavoured variation, omit the aniseeds, essence and ouzo, and instead add 2 tbsp orange rind, the juice of 2 oranges and 3 capfuls of brandy.
- You may need extra flour.
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