Polvorones Spanish Almond Cookies Recipe

Polvorones are traditional spanish christmas cookies flavored with almonds and crumbly in texture. Like polvo, "Powder" Or "Dust" In spanish, these cookies will crumble to a dust-like consistency in your hand or mouth, but the name also derives from the fact that some choose to dust them with generous amounts of powdered sugar, making them dusty on the outside. Polvorones are a type of mantecado, a variety of spanish shortbread made with manteca, or pork fat. Traditionally, these cookies were prepared from september to january only, but nowadays are available all year-round. Polvorones have quite a history: during the spanish inquisition, officials decreed that polvorones were to be made with pork fat as a way to detect if there were muslims or jews hiding in the regions of southern spain. When asked to eat the pork-full cookies these individuals had to decline because of their faith and were then taken by the inquisidores to face trial. Today, polvorones recipes often replace the pork fat with shortening, butter or margarine, but have maintained their status in spanish cuisine as a favorite holiday cookie, used now simply to sweeten our life.