Every year as September rolls around I get hit by a jab of nostalgia; celebrating Independence day brings back lots of memories, food included. Of course, some things are relatively easy to make at home any time, like baleadas or burras. Some, like semitas, take a lot more effort (and maybe a teeny bit more skill than I currently have). I’ve been putting off making semitas for such a long time even though I’ve been wanting to make them for equally as long. So today, finally having a day off (and an insane amount of eggs) I set myself the task of making semitas. I found a reasonable recipe (without an insane amounts of ingredients) here.
Here’s the translation:
Paste/cover ingredients
300g strong flour
150g butter (she used margarine)
75g sugar
3 egg yolks
1tsp vanilla extract
1/2tsp salt
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, make a well in the center and add the yolks, butter, and vanilla extract. Mix and knead by hand for a couple of minutes until a dough forms. Set aside.
Dough ingredients
500g strong flour
120g egg yolks (about 8)
85g sugar
60g butter
2 tbsp dry yeast (I used a single sachet, one is good for 500g flour)
125ml milk (should be tepid)
Now, she did her mixing on the counter; I did mine in a bowl as I don’t have a lot of space and also don’t fancy making a bigger mess than necessary.
So.
Combine dry ingredients in bowl. Add yolks, milk and butter and knead until a smooth dough forms (no longer sticky).
(I did mine by hand and I wouldn’t describe it as ‘silky’. Not sure if it could be the butter or maybe in need of more liquid. Anyway. I was in too deep now, I had to finish them, however they turned out.)
Shaping the semita
Divide the dough into equal portions (mine were 75g, to yield 12 semitas). Then separate the paste into the same number of portions. With the paste, roll each portion into a ball. Take one and make a tortilla with it, cover the dough portion with the paste tortilla, smoothing down the edges. Roll on a plate with sugar to cover it all. Place on baking sheet. Repeat x 12.
Leave to rest for an hour (huh? This is essentially the one rise for these breads…how will that affect the texture?). The dough will rise until it cracks the paste on top (mine was a tad too thick so the only cracks were around the bottom).
Bake at 180°c for 25min or until golden (the bottoms on mine got a tad dark because I was pushing for the ‘golden’ look). Place on a rack to cool (hah, yeah right).
I took a knife and sliced one right away… I needed to see whether it was a pass or a fail.
It was a pass, though the inside was really dense due to the dough not having a proper rise (maybe my layer of paste was too thick). Not to worry, I already have another recipe to try out once these semitas get eaten (with less egg, thankfully, as well as a more familiar baking process which should result in a fluffier semita).
Which shouldn’t take too long.
Buen provecho!
A taste of five homes 