Miguelitos: the Spanish cream-filled pastries everyone will love

Oh! These crunchy delights are just so wonderful that you will be surprised at your cooking abilities.

Before starting with the recipe, let's discover their story: Miguelitos de la Roda are a light and flaky cream-filled pastry born in the Spanish province of Albacete. The pastry chef named his creation after a friend who was the first to taste them in 1960.

Try once, and you just won’t be able to resist finishing all at once… these lovelies are all this and much more!

Instructions:

Prepare the puff pastry dough by adding the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water to the flour and knead everything into a smooth dough. You might add a little more water than mentioned in the recipe. Shape the dough roughly in to a square, wrap the dough in a cling film and then refrigerate it for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pound the butter on to a clean counter until it is just about soft and pliable. Now, gather all the butter, wrap it in a plastic film in a square shape, and chill it for about 20 minutes.

Unwrap and roll the dough in to a large rectangle of about ½ inch thickness. Use a little dry flour, if required. Place the butter disk at the center of the rectangle and fold the 2 alternate ends one over the other to make a parcel of it. Roll the dough again in to a rectangle and fold it again in three parts and then again fold the two adjacent ends to shape it in to a square. Wrap the dough in the plastic wrap again, refrigerate the dough for another 30 minutes, and repeat the rolling and folding steps again about 2 to 3 more times. The more you repeat this process the more layers of the dough you get upon baking. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a baking tray with aluminum sheet.

Now, roll the dough in to ¼ inch thickness and cut the dough in to equal parts about 2 inches wide. Place the dough on to the lined baking tray and brush each square with beaten egg. Bake the dough for about 20 minutes or until it is light brown in color on the top. Cool the baked puffs. Meanwhile, pour half of the milk in a pan and boil it with the cinnamon stick. Add the lemon zest and vanilla to the boiling milk and remove the pan from the heat. Slightly cool it.

Mix the remaining milk, corn starch, granulated sugar and egg yolks in another bowl until it is smooth and well combined. Add the egg mixture to milk, stir everything well, and again put it on heat to boil while you stir the custard continuously until it is thick and smooth in consistency. Cool the custard to room temperature. Carefully cut the puff pastry horizontally from the center and then fill it with thick custard. Lightly dust the miguelitos with powdered sugar and enjoy!

Tips: 

– To make this recipe short, you may use market bought puff pastry to prepare this recipe.

– Use 4 to 5 puff pastry sheets one on top of the other to prepare this recipe from step number 9.

– Maintain the baking temperature and you might need to keep a watch on the puff pastry in the final minutes of baking.

– Make sure that you carefully break the egg and separate the egg yolks properly to not add the shell to the dish.

Nutritional information (per serving): 212 Calories, 9.8g Total fat (5.6g Saturated fat, 0.6g Polyunsaturated fat, 2.8g Monounsaturated fat), 83.7mg Cholesterol, 72.9mg Sodium, 89.4mg Potassium, 26.3g Total carbohydrates (0.9g Dietary fiber, 5.4g Sugars), 4.8g Protein