Polvorones
The name comes from polvo, dust — a description of the texture rather than a metaphor. The secret is a step rarely found in other pastries: the flour is toasted in the oven before it goes into the dough. Toasted flour barely forms gluten, so the dough never binds and crumbles in the mouth. The second condition: no eggs and no liquid, only fat.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Toasting the flour 25 min
- Cooling the flour 30 min
- Dough 15 min
- Chilling 60 min
- Baking 20 min
- Cooling 30 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneToast the flour in the oven
Heat the oven to 160°C. Spread the plain flour thinly on a tray and toast 20 minutes at 160°C, stirring every 5, until pale beige and smelling nutty. Tip it into a bowl. This step is what makes polvorones — raw flour would give ordinary shortbread.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Pale beige and nutty-smelling — the flour is ready.Toast the sesame and almonds
On the same tray toast the sesame for 4 minutes, until fragrant. The ground almonds can be briefly toasted too (3–5 minutes) — it deepens the flavour, but watch them, as almonds scorch much faster than flour.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Cool the flour completely
Leave the flour (and the almonds, if toasted) to cool completely, at least 30 minutes. Warm flour melts the fat and the dough turns into a thick cream that cannot be shaped into biscuits.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Bring the dough together without kneading
Cream the lard with the icing sugar, add both flours, the cinnamon, sesame, zest and salt and combine only until it gathers. The dough should be sandy and barely hold together — kneaded, it turns dense and loses its shortness.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Sandy and barely holding — do not knead it.Chill an hour and cut out
Flatten the dough to 1.5 cm between sheets of film, chill 60 minutes and cut out ovals. The thickness matters: thinner and the biscuit collapses as you lift it, thicker and the centre stays raw.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Bake briefly, without colouring
Heat the oven to 170°C, move the biscuits to a lined tray and bake 18 minutes at 170°C — they should stay pale, with barely golden bases. Browned polvorones are dry and hard; they should come out of the oven soft and only turn crumbly as they cool.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Cool on the tray, do not move them
Cool 30 minutes on the tray without moving them. Hot polvorones fall apart at the lightest touch — not a fault in the dough but its nature, and it passes as they cool.
Ingredients: 300 g plain flour · 150 g ground almonds · 180 g lard · 150 g icing sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 2 tbsp sesame seeds · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Bury them in icing sugar
Dip the cooled biscuits into a bowl of icing sugar, coating them on every side. In Spain they are wrapped individually in tissue paper — not only for looks: wrapped, such fragile biscuits do not crumble in the box or on the way to the table.
Ingredients: 100 g icing sugar
Buried in sugar, not dusted.
Before you start
Lard or butter
Traditionally lard, and it gives the characteristic sandy shortness. Butter gives a more buttery flavour but contains water, so the biscuits come out slightly denser. Both versions are available in Spain today.
Mantecados are not the same
Polvorones are usually considered a kind of mantecado: oval, made with almonds and thickly coated in icing sugar. Mantecados are often round, frequently without almonds, flavoured with lemon, anise or cinnamon. They sit side by side in Spanish shops and are frequently confused.
Three weeks in a tin
With no water and no eggs, polvorones keep three weeks in an airtight box. They are Christmas biscuits made well ahead — after a few days the flavours meld.
