Calatrava bread recipe

Typical of La Mancha or Murcian cuisine, this recipe for grandma’s calatrava bread is a magnificent traditional sweet prepared many years ago by our ancestors. Normally, it is made with the remains of bread from previous days or with biscuits or muffins that were forgotten and hardened.

In this way, calatrava bread is an excellent dessert, and it is made with such simplicity and ease in its preparation that you will be surprised how tasty it is. Discover how to make calatrava bread in this article and enjoy this classic homemade grandmother’s recipe.

Ingredients to make calatrava bread:

• 1 glass of white sugar (for the caramel)
• 6 muffins, ladyfingers or day-old bread 6 slices
• 5 eggs
• 3 tablespoons liquid vanilla
• 500 milliliters of semi-skimmed milk
• 1 piece of lemon zest
• 6 tablespoons of white sugar (if the biscuits were not sweet or you used bread)
• medium size plum cake container

How to make calatrava bread:

1. To start with the homemade calatrava bread, heat the sugar in a pan with a splash of water.
2. Stir until dissolved, then continue to stir slowly so that the sugar browns.
3. Trick: don’t let the sugar toast excessively, when it turns orange it will be ready, otherwise it will become bitter.
4. In a container suitable for the oven, pour the sugar that you have just toastedand move the mold so that it is distributed throughout the bottom.
5.  Next, chop and put the biscuits in the container, so that the pieces are quite large.
6. On the other hand, beat the eggs effusively until foamy.
7. In this step it is not convenient to add more sugar if you prepare the calatrava bread with madeleines or sugary biscuits. However, if you prepare the calatrava bread with bread, you can add sugar.
8. Once you have them ready, reserve to continue with the rest of the steps.
9. Prepare the milk and pour into the container with the beaten eggs, also add the essence of vanilla.
10. If you want to use other types of aromas, such as cinnamon or orange zest, it can also be delicious.
11. Add the zest of the lemon skin as the last step and stir so that everything is mixed and a kind of homogeneous cream remains
12. Prepare the oven at 200 ºC with both resistors and place a tray in the middle of the oven filled with water.
13. Pour the Murcian calatrava bread mixture into the plum cake pan and let the cake pieces soak while the oven heats up. It will be ready to use in approximately 10 minutes.
14. Place the container inside the tray so that your spongy calatrava bread is cooked in a bain-marie, leave it for 45 minutes at 160ºC.
15. After this time, we always recommend that you check with a toothpick poking in the center to see if the Calatrava bread is already curdled, if not, return to the oven and leave another five or eight minutes.
16. Trick: if you see that it browns too much on top, put a piece of aluminum foil on it as a lid.
17. Once the time has elapsed, take it out and let the calatrava bread warm up for an hour out of the fridge.
18. Then, take it to the fridge to finish chilling and, if possible, leave it for about 6 hours or overnight, it will be even more delicious!
19. When serving, unmold by inserting a fine-tipped nail or knife through the edges of the container, it will peel off the walls and it will come out more easily.