Panellets are the special sweet treats we Catalans have for La Castañada. A castaña is a chestnut and these days... your Halloween time... here in Catalonia it's typical to toast chestnuts, bake sweet potatoes and also bake panellets.
Remember I always tell you that here we don't bake sweets at home that much? Well, panellets are the exception! Even at kinder garden, kids learn how to do them!!!The main ingredients are: almond, sugar and water. The basics for a marzipan. Some people also add some potatoes, but this recipe won't have any. Adding the potatoes will help get more panellets done in the same batch and it's basically added because almonds are not cheap and potatoes are. My recipe is done with no potatoes, if you want to add some, check proportions... I don't know how much you should add.
Last year (I love to say that... he, he) I posted about All saints day and promised that I would upload the Panellets recipe... better late than never ;D.
Believe me if I tell you that I normally don't bake, but I must have some kind of fever that when I enter the kitchen the oven seems to call me and I end up baking something in there. That's why I chose Lou Reed song: Take a walk on the wild side, being "the wild side" my baking "side" ☺!
This time I've performed 8 different kinds of Panellets... don't panic! It's easy because the basic dough is the same all the time and we will only add small doses of flavour to make the different kinds. I did chocolate ones, pine nuts, almonds, lemon, cinnamon, strawberry jam, coffee and fruits jelly.Here in this post you will only find the: cinnamon, coffee, chocolate, pine nuts, almond and lemon. But will be enough to get the idea of how to bake them. So, let's put our aprons on and start the kitchen Feast!
Ingredients for the marzipan: 500 grs of superfine ground almond, 500 grs of superfine ground sugar and 100 grs of water.Start the dough by mixing the ingredients. Even though you think you might need more water, don't add more because it wouldn't work. Your fingers will get very sticky but after a little while it will get better. Wrap the kneaded dough with transparent kitchen film and keep in the fridge for 1/2 hour.
*First kind* Meanwhile prepare the space where you will do the panellets: Clean the surface and have the following ready: 1 teaspoon of ground coffee, 1 teaspoon of melted chocolate, 1 teaspoon of ground Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of strawberry jam, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of its grated peel.
*Second kind* Whisk one egg and prepare a bowl with 200 grs of pine nuts and another one with 200 grs chopped almonds.
Instructions: Take the dough out of the fridge and put it over a clean surface. With your hands knead it until you get this shape. Then cut in 8 parts.
Each of these parts will be one batch of panellets. Take the first one of the parts make a small hole in the middle and pour the teaspoon of cinnamon (for example). Knead until you get an homogeneous color and give it a cylindrical shape, and again divide in 8 equal parts. Once you have them, give the shape you want (I made a ball) and reserve.Follow same procedure for the First kind panellets.
To make the almond and pine nuts ones, get the egg whisked and the bowls with the pine nuts and almonds ready.
Have the marzipan ready in balls (pine nuts) and in little croquettes (almonds). Moist your hands with the egg, take the marzipan 8th portion of the 8th portion (doubts here?) and spread the egg all over with your hands, then take a handful of pine nuts and rub carefully against the marzipan ball, don't press too much, don't let too loose. Once the nuts get adhered to the ball, reserve. Follow same procedure for the almond ones.
Baking Time.- Preheat oven at 250 or more if you can and turn the upper heat on at maximum.
Bake them by colours, don't mix, just eight by eight. Place some oven paper on an oven tray and put, for example, the coffee ones. Place in the upper rack. Don't do other things while panellets are in the oven, just look at them! Baking, can take only 30 seconds, or a bit more, or a bit less... Just watch them carefully and when they start getting some colour, take them out.
Don't manipulate them, they are soft now, reserve and let them get cold. Go for the next until you have them all over your kitchen counter. Once cold present in a golden or white beautifully worked kitchen paper and have with sweet wine.
I'm sending the Coffee Panellets to Meeta and her Monthly Mingle: Coffee and Tea. Hope you like them, darling :D. You still have time to send your recipes over her blog, just check the terms and join the party!
Buen provecho! Bon profit!
Possibilities are endless... you can do them with: orange, figs and rom, coconut, walnuts...
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