Mantecados are very typical sweets at Christmas as well as the polvorones. Unlike the latter, however, mantecados do not have almonds among their ingredients, so we could say that as a product they are simpler. But equally rich. Hence, I encourage you to prepare these shortbreads with or without chocolate coverage.
Three ingredients, you don't need more to prepare these traditional shortbreads. Flour, lard and sugar. Lard is essential and you will have no problem finding it in large stores, even if this is not a very common product.
Adding a chocolate coating or not is up to you! It seems to me a fantastic idea to make two different products with the same dough: some classic shortbreads sprinkled with icing sugar and others with chocolate coating. Will you dare to prepare them? It's that easy:
The recipe
- 250 g. Of flour.
- 125g. of icing sugar.
- 125 g. lard at room temperature
- 1 tablet of dark fondant chocolate
- 1 teaspoon of butter
- We start by toasting the flour in the oven. To do this, we spread it out on a tray and with the oven turned on at 100ºC, with heat on top and bottom, cook for 20 minutes, stirring it from time to time so that it toasts evenly.
- Then we take the flour out of the oven and let it cool before starting to prepare the shortbread.
- Once it's cold, mix the lard with the sugar until you get a fine cream.
- Then we add the flour and again until it is perfectly integrated.
- Transfer the dough to a previously floured surface and stretch to a thickness of 1,5 cm. approx.
- Preheat the oven to 190ºC, heat up and down, and we cut the mantecados with the help of a round cookie cutter.
- We place them on the oven tray lined with baking paper and we bake about 17 minutes until they start to brown.
- Then we take them out of the oven and transfer them with the paper to a rack so that they finish cooling.
- Once cold we prepare the chocolate for the coverage, melting it with the butter in a bain-marie.
- After we bathe the shortbread Be very careful that they do not break with the help of two spoons to submerge them and drain them before placing them on a tray with aluminum foil.
- In conclusion, we take to the fridge one for the chocolate to finish hardening.