What is Cádiz bread and how is it made?

Pan de Cádiz is a very typical Christmas sweet from the south of Spain. It is a kind of chest made with marzipan filled with sweet potato cream and yolk, which carries hundreds of years of tradition behind it, which is well worth having to be on a diet for the rest of the week.

There are sweets that should not be overlooked, especially when their recipe preserves the flavor of dozens of decades and their origin contains the weight of several stories worthy of being told generation after generation.

At Casa Mira we want to reveal some curious facts about this Christmas sweet and the recipe so you can make it at home.

The curious history of Cadiz Bread

Few sweets can have as many stories about their origin as the Pan de Cádiz. We have found up to 4 different stories, but the one we like the most is the one that is told to tourists when they pass by the bakeries of the city and are interested in the peculiar aspect that this sweet has.

Legend has it that, back in the 19th century, in the middle of the War of Independence, the French besieged the lands of Cádiz, exerting pressure and control over the population, preventing goods and food from entering the city.

The lack of wheat led to the use of almonds, one of the ingredients of which there was an abundance at that time, to make bread. It is said that, in the Palacio de la Aduana, there was a large load of almonds that were destined for export, but could not be exported; so the people of Cadiz decided to make a bread based on almonds, that is, a kind of marzipan. These were the beginnings of the famous Pan de Cádiz.

The truth is that, as interesting as this story may seem to us, it is rather questionable, since it was unlikely that an ingredient much more expensive than wheat itself would have been used to make bread, and whose general population would not have had easy access to it.

Other stories, much more boring, although surely with more chances to be true, are those that attribute the creation of the Pan de Cádiz to a baker known as Antonio Valls Garrido, inventor of nougat in the mid-nineteenth century and resident in Cadiz.

It is said that Valls created the copper-shaped Pan de Cádiz in order to keep small sweet treasures inside, and that is why he decided to fill it with candied fruit, egg yolk, angel hair or sweet potato cream.

Be that as it may, the truth is that the Pan de Cádiz has earned the recognition, not only of Cádiz, but of all the tables of the country, with the passing of the centuries.

How to make homemade Pan de Cádiz

Ingredients

For the marzipan

• 250 g ground almonds
• 250 g powdered sugar
• 2 egg whites

For the yolk cream

• 100 g sugar
• 6 egg yolks
• 3 tablespoons of water

For the sweet potato filling

• 1 medium sweet potato
• 50 g powdered sugar

To paint

• 1 egg yolk

Preparation of Cadiz Bread

Dough preparation

• In a bowl , mix the ground almonds with the powdered sugar. Then add the egg whites and knead with your hands until you obtain a smooth and homogeneous dough.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 2 hours at room temperature.

Sweet potato filling

• Wash the sweet potatoes well and roast them whole, unpeeled, in the oven at 180°C until they are soft when pierced, about 30 – 40 minutes.
• Let them cool, peel and mash them together with the powdered sugar and set aside.

Yolk cream for filling

• Beat the egg yolks and set aside. In a saucepan put the water and sugar to make a consistent syrup. Pour the beaten yolks into another saucepan and add the syrup very slowly and beat by hand to integrate it.
• Place the saucepan on the fire while whisking until it thickens without boiling.
• Set aside and let cool covered with cling film.

Stuffing the bread

• Roll out the bread with a rolling pin between two sheets of baking paper. It should be half a centimeter thick.
• Line an oblong mold with baking paper. Then, place a sheet of marzipan all over the bottom and sides of the mold, trimming the excess.
• Fill with a layer of egg yolk cream and cover with another rectangle of marzipan without leaving any holes. On top we put the sweet potato cream and put another rectangle of marzipan, closing the edges well.
• Finally, we make parallel lines on the top with a sharp knife, being careful not to cut the whole marzipan layer; and we paint with beaten egg yolk on the top.
• Previously heat the oven to 200°C, top and bottom, and bake for 6 minutes. To brown them we can put the oven on grill or raise the breads in the upper part of the oven until golden brown.
• Allow to cool completely before unmolding.

Although if you don’t want to stain your hands, but you want to try a great Pan de Cádiz, you can find itin Casa Mira, it is one of our specialties!