Flavours of Spain, part 2: BRAZO DE GITANO

Welcome to the next chapter of Flavours of Spain!

Today, I’m going to bake a Brazo de Gitano in the form of a Cupcake.

Brazo de Gitano (literally translated: Gipsy’s Arm… no idea why, to be honest) is the Spanish version of the Swiss roll and was invented in the Middle Ages. It’s usually filled with “Crema Pastelera” (it’s a cream similar to thick custard) or “Nata” (whipped cream) and can be covered in chocolate.

Looking at the first picture you might think: “it looks like a normal cupcake”. Yes, it looks like it, but actually, they look like this without the icing:



Let’s start with the “Mini Brazo de Gitano”. This time I’m not inventing anything, as I have the BEST recipe ever for Brazo de Gitano: my mum’s recipe. She bakes the most delicious Brazo de Gitano I’ve ever tried!
I divided the quantities from her recipe in two, as her Brazo de Gitano is usually XXL. With the ingredients that follow, I baked 2 mini Brazo de Gitanos, each of them resulting in 4 to 5 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 50 gr flour
• 50 gr sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder

Heat oven to 170C.
Separate the yolks from the egg whites.
Mix 1 tbsp of sugar with the yolks in one bowl.
Mix the flour and the baking powder in another bowl.
Whisk the whites in a big bowl, until very stiff.
Then slowly add the rest of the sugar whilst whisking). Then slowly add the yolks and the flour.

Once it is thoroughly mixed, spread half of the mixture on a baking tray previously lined with baking parchment (you’ll bake the rest after). It has to be a very thin layer of mixture.

Bake for 8 minutes.
Once baked, let it cool down.

Ingredients for the Crema Pastelera (that’s the filling for the Brazo de Gitano)

• 300 ml milk
• 1 tbsp maicena (corn flour)
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks

Dissolve the corn flour with 100ml milk in a glass.
Mix the yolks with 3 tbsp sugar.
Put the rest of the milk in a saucepan, add the sugar and mix. Add the corn flour and the yolks. Bring to the boil slowly, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Let it boil for 5 seconds and remove from heat.


Now cover the sponge cake with this cream. Roll it, cut off the ends and let it settle.



I cut mine in two, and it looked really cute.


Then make 4 slices: you have 4 cupcakes ready to be iced.




For the icing, I used 75gr vegetable shortening, 40gr butter, 100gr icing sugar and 100gr Nesquick (I didn’t have any other cocoa powder around, hehe).
I used golden edible glitter to decorate.
And this is the result:





Both my fiancé and I tried them and we think they’re delicious. The Crema Pastelera filling makes them really tasty!!

I hope you like my idea! I promise a new update very soon!!!

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