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Santa Maria Ear Biscuits
Traditional recipe for Santa Maria's ear biscuits from the Azores: a lard and butter dough with homemade starter, hand-shaped and snipped into ears.
- 200 pieces
- 2h
- 1h30
- 14h
- Hard
Ear biscuits are Santa Maria's most emblematic sweet and are made only on this island. The dough combines flour, eggs, sugar, butter, lard and a homemade starter, and every biscuit is shaped by hand: a thin strip of dough is wound around the fingers into a triangle and the three corners are snipped with scissors into little “ears”.
In Santa Maria homes they were a must for the pig slaughter, weddings, the Holy Spirit festivities and Christmas. At Christmas, godchildren received an extra-large ear biscuit from their godparents.
Method
The day before, make the starter: work the risen bread dough with a little flour and lukewarm water, cover the bowl and leave it to rise overnight.
The next day, tip the flour into a large bowl and add the starter, eggs, sugar, lard, butter and salt.
Work the dough by hand, adding a splash of lukewarm water only if it is too dry, until it is smooth and starts to form air bubbles as you fold it.
Shape the dough into balls of the same size, cover them with a floured cloth so they do not stick, and leave them to rise.
Once risen, knead the dough again until it is soft and easy to shape.
Pinch off small pieces of dough, roll each one between your hands into a thin rope and press it flat with your thumb.
Wrap the strip several times around your index and middle fingers, then slide it off without unwinding it so the biscuit closes into a triangle.
With scissors, make a small snip at each of the three corners: these are the “ears”.
Grease the trays with lard, scatter a little flour over them and lay out the biscuits.
Bake in a very hot oven, as for bread (about 200 °C in a home oven), until cooked through and light brown.
Take out the trays, stand the biscuits upright against each other and return them to a low oven (about 120 °C) until dry and hard, a step known on the island as abiscoitar.
Let them cool completely before storing them in tightly closed tins or bags.
Tips
- This is a half batch, easier to make at home. The traditional batch in Santa Maria homes is twice the size: 3 kg flour, 10 eggs, 1 kg sugar, 500 g lard, 250 g butter and 2–3 tablespoons of risen dough, for about 400 biscuits.
- If you have no risen bread dough, ask a bakery for a little, or make a starter the day before with a small amount of fresh baker's yeast, flour and lukewarm water.
- Keep the biscuits small, with sides of 3.5–6 cm and 8–16 g each, so they bake and dry evenly.
- Store them in tightly closed tins in a dry place so they stay crisp.
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