Polvorones

Shortbread Cookie Recipe

Our shortbread cookie recipe has undergone very few changes since it was created about 100 years ago. We’ve had the current recipe since the mid-20th century.

Our artisan shortbread cookies contain a generous amount of ground almonds (approximately 30%), wheat flour, sugar, pork lard, and a touch of cinnamon and lemon zest. We believe they need nothing more.

Although there are variants (gluten-free, without pork lard, sugar-free, etc.) we currently only make traditional shortbread cookies and chocolate ones.

Production Process

First, all the main raw materials are prepared: Almonds, pork lard, and sugar.

Antioxidants in the homemade shortbread cookie recipe

On the back label of our homemade shortbread cookies you’ll find that they contain antioxidants, for example E306 and E310.

These antioxidants are present in the pork lard we purchase from trusted distributors and which we obviously don’t manufacture ourselves—completely safe, necessary antioxidants permitted by the Ministry of Health.

Origin of Shortbread Cookies

As with any story, there are several theories, but everything points to the origin of shortbread cookies being in Estepa, Andalusia, in the mid-16th century, during the time of Philip II.

There in the Convent of Santa Clara appear the first written shortbread cookie recipes. And as always, the nuns were experts at sweetening the world.

At that time, there was a great abundance of holm oaks in the forests, which resulted in a large number of pigs with plenty of fat. That excess pork lard resulted in a wide variety of recipes using that ingredient, among them the mantecado.

Although the origin of shortbread cookies dates to the 16th century, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that Filomena Micaela Ruiz “La Colchona” popularised them throughout Andalusia through her husband, a transporter. She also established the foundations of the current texture we know today.

In the 20th century, with global industrialisation, the shortbread cookie reached every corner of Spain, with records of up to 400,000 kg of shortbread cookie production in 1939, becoming a Christmas sweet as popular as turrón.

Currently there is a protected designation of origin “Mantecados de Estepa” and “Polvorones de Estepa” that sets quality standards resulting in excellent products. But where we are, in Jijona (Alicante), we make Polvorones de Jijona. Our own recipe that contains much more almond than the PGI requires.