The Mystery of Trenta (Madrid)

As always, PLEASE CLICK ON these pictures to see more lovely detail.

Window of Horno La Santiguesa

I looked all over the web for a recipe for a wonderful little braided sweet bread I found at this bakery on Calle Meyor, not too far from Palacio Real.* It's called 'trenta' (not treInta - the baker in the panaderia edited my hand-written note).

The only recipe I found was one for some Slovakian bread that is totally different. I know it was kind of like brioche but not as rich. It also had a little cinnamon twisted in.

the mysterious trenta

My search on recipes for "spanish bread" did turn up a wonderful recipe for camote, a sweet potato bread (recipe below). It was NOTHING LIKE THE TRENTA, but it is delicious. I found it in a great blog called Kusina ni Manang, which is a lot of fun to read. The author describes her entries as, A Filipina's unabashed chronicle of her adaptations in the American kitchen. The bread is extremely good. I made the dough - only, as I always do, in a two-pound loaf bread machine, then shaped it in pans, let it rise once more in a 200 degree oven, and baked it in a regular oven at 350 degrees. With the alterations I made to the recipe (removing the butter and increasing the sweet potato, changing milk and water to buttermilk) it baked very fast. Two loaves done around 25 - 30 minutes after the oven rise.

Another friendly-looking panaderia window

The author of Kusina ni Manang says about this recipe, "Camote is very cheap in the Philippines compared to flour, and the soft yellowish rolls they create will probably boost up sales and profit.

"

I don't know about sales and profit but the soft yellow bread is sure good.

The following is my re-interpretation of this recipe.

I run the machine on the dough cycle and bake it in the oven, so it bakes and looks like real bread.

* Spray or oil the bread machine pan first. It's a sticky dough.

Put in the wet stuff.

3/4 cup 2% buttermilk (original was 
1 / 2 cup milk and 1 / 4 cup water
)

1 / 2 cup boiled and mashed sweet potato
 (this was about one regular sized sweet-potato, skinned and mashed with a potato masher)

1 large egg


Put in the dry stuff.

1-1/2 teaspoons salt


5 shakes from the cinnamon shaker (my addition)

3 cups bread flour (I ran out of bread flour and so did the grocery store. Regular unbleached works fine in this.)

Make a dent (well) in the top of the flour.

Fill with following yeast and sugar mixture

(sugar helps the yeast work, this position keeps yeast dry until wet ingredients are heated up to the right yeast-working temperature)

1/4 cup white sugar


1/6 cup brown sugar (not in original recipe)

2 tsp Fleischmann's bread machine yeast


* Let the machine run on the dough cycle

* Once the dough cycle has run it's course (1:30 on my machine), then shape into 2 greased loaf pans (or one loaf pan for a really, really high loaf)

* Put into a 200 degree oven and let them rise once more for 20 minutes

* Switch oven over to 350 degrees and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. A really, really big loaf takes about 35 minutes. I stick a knife right down in the middle to make sure they are done. Yeah, it leaves a hole but you know your bread is done. If you like to tap instead, go for it.

Very good with some healthy-type margarine and honey

* Yes, I carefully wrote down the address and location in comparison to other well-known buildings in the travel notebook I lost on the airplane home.