One of the most typical sweets of the Canarian cuisine are the Carnival tortillas, a traditional sweet that has been prepared for more than 6 decades and that were very popular in the old costume parties, much more modest and familiar than the current and spectacular Carnivals.
In the past, the tradition was based on the fact that each family took any suit from their closets, men dressed in women’s clothing and women in men’s clothing, and they went house by house organizing small parties accompanied by guitars and timples. During these holidays it was tradition that the aforementioned Carnival tortillas were served, sweetened with honey or sugar.
There are many variants of the recipe by changing or adding an ingredient, such as boiled pumpkin, but the base recipe remains virtually the same. It is a very simple dessert to prepare and for it we will only use household ingredients.
Here is the list of necessary ingredients (for 12 pancakes):
– 6 eggs
– 1/4 kg of sugar
– 400 gr of flour
– the zest of a lemon
– half a liter of milk
– 100 ml of anise
– honey
– Cinnamon stick
– Olive oil
This is the way of preparation:
– First we have to separate the yolks from the whites.
– We take the egg whites and assemble them with the blender, and once they are ready we will add the sugar, the yolks, the flour, the anise and the milk.
– Finally we add the lemon zest and stop beating, so that the dough rest a few minutes.
– Now we heat the oil well in a pan and we will separate small portions of dough to fry them then, allowing them to be done on one side and turning them before removing them from the fire so that they are browned on both sides.
– To make the accompaniment of the tortillas we will put the cinnamon stick in a bowl with honey and heat it to taste. Finally we add a drizzle of olive oil to the honey and water it on the omeletes or torrijas, as we call them at home 😉