Ensaimada de Mallorca

Ensaïmada is a delicious sweet bread, something between puff pastry and sweet brioche.

The recipe requires lard, I replaced it with butter (I know this sacrificed authenticity), I also added sourdough starter, and the final product turned out absolutely delicious. But if you don’t have sourdough starter, the recipe works perfect with yeast.

The recipe was adapted from the talented Sylvain Vernay.

Ingredients

Sourdough Starter 

• 10g sourdough starter
• 30g water
• 30g bread flour

Dough

• 250g bread flour 
• 70g water 
• 60g sourdough starter 
• 1 egg
• 80g sugar 
• 5g salt 
• 25g soft butter ( or lard)
• 1g dry yeast (optional, to reduce sourness)
• Powdered sugar for dusting final product 

Shaping

• 200g soft butter (or lard)

Directions 

Day 1

Starter

• 8 am add liquid starter to the water and whisk together, add flour, mix well, let ferment covered at room temp 74-78F until it increases in size
• In about 6 hours starter has to triple or more in volume.
• Learn how to make starter from scratch here).

Dough

• 2 pm in a bowl of mixer add water, sourdough starter, yeast (if using), sugar and an egg and whisk all together. Add flour, mix until no dry flour remains, cover and let autolyse for 30 min.
• 2.30 pm Start mixing the dough on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 3-4 minutes until well incorporated.
• Add salt and mix for a couple more minutes. The dough should form a ball.
• Add soft butter (or lard) , mix for 7-10 more minutes on high speed until the dough is well incorporated and comes up together during mixing.
• Cover and let it rest for 1 hour at 76-80F/ 24-28C.
• During that time perform 1 stretches and fold.

Shaping

• You will need a big surface for stretching the dough.
• 3.30 pm oil the work surface with neutral oil without flavor.
• Place the dough in the center, and try to stretch it by hands until it’s 4-5 mm thick
• Spread the soft butter or lard(if using) all over the surface.

Note: butter should be spread on the dough before you will start to stretch it. Otherwise it will start to rip if you’ll be applying the butter to the already stretched dough.

• When all butter applied, start stretching the dough as thin as possible to cover all working surface.
• Be gentle, but try to stretch the dough as thin as possible.
• Then roll the dough into a long roll.
• Cover it and let rest for 30 min
• 4 pm stretch the roll until it will get longer and evenly shaped. Stretch it until it will become 2-3 am thick in diameter.
• Place parchment paper on a tray, and try to shape the roll into a snail. But make sure to leave some space (about 2 cm) in between each spiral.
• Let it proof covered at 74-78F for about 3 hours,
• 7 pm transfer your ensaimada to a cooler please, where temperature is about 64-68F and let proof until next morning.

Day 2

Next morning ensaimada has to double or more in volume. If not, let it proof at warmer place for 2-3 hours.

Baking

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Bake ensaimada for 20-25 min.
• Let it cool down and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
• Enjoy.