Polvorones de Estepa

Appearance & taste

Polvorones de Estepa are toasted brown and oblong, covered with icing sugar on top, 4 to 7 cm in diameter, 2.5 cm thick and at most 50 g in weight. The surface is slightly cracked. The texture is fine, soft and crisp at the same time: firm on the outside, tender inside and soft on the palate. The moisture content is below 7.5 %. Depending on the almond content, there are the varieties “Casero” (home-made style) and “Almendra/Tradicional” (almond/traditional).

The biscuits are sold individually or together with other Christmas confectionery. Individual wrappers and boxes that contain only protected polvorones carry the statement “Protected Geographical Indication”, the name and the logo. In mixed boxes only the individual wrappers may carry the symbol; on the outside the name appears only in the list of contents as “Polvorones de Estepa IGP”.

Production

The dough consists of 40 to 50 % wheat flour, 20 to 25 % lard, 22 to 27 % icing sugar, 0.1 to 1 % cinnamon, natural lemon or vanilla flavourings, optionally up to 1 % cloves and at least 8 % almonds. After the raw materials have been selected and prepared, the dough is made, cut, shaped into biscuits and baked.

The polvorones are then cooled to below 10 °C and immediately wrapped individually, by machine in sealed paper using the flow-pack method or by hand or machine with a double-twist wrap. Cooling them first prevents water vapour from condensing inside the wrapping. They are packed in the area so that the biscuits do not dry out, go rancid or break.

Origin & history

The area is the municipality of Estepa in the province of Seville. According to the specification, the biscuits have been made there to the same recipe for over a hundred years, and a large part of the population is directly or indirectly involved in making them in the run-up to Christmas from September to December.

Their origins go back to the 16th century: records in the archive of the Santa Clara convent in Estepa name confectioners who met demand from Seville and Madrid and contain references to old recipes. At that time, cereals were mixed with the surplus lard from the December slaughter, which according to the specification explains why the biscuits are eaten at Christmas. Even then, baking moulds gave the biscuits their present shape.

Micaela Ruiz Téllez, known as “La Colchona” (1824–1901), is regarded as the inventor of today’s polvorones. She developed a method by which the biscuits dry only on the outside during baking and stay tender inside without crumbling, and refined the milling and toasting of the flour. The biscuits were already marketed under the name “Polvorones de Estepa” at the third “Feria del Campo” in Madrid in 1959. The Spanish inventory of traditional products from 1996 lists them as a traditional product.