Almendrados: Spanish Almond-Lemon Macaroons

Wishing you a happy spring. 

Here in Southern California, the birds are singing and gardens are waking up. How good is that?

Here is a recipe for a wonderful cookie to celebrate spring, the Spanish Almendrado, sometimes described as an almond-lemon macaroon. It is a small cookie with a big flavor–slightly crispy on the outside with a soft lemony interior.  

Today, Almendrados are widely enjoyed in Spain. A popular Christmas treat, the cookies make use of Spain’s abundant almond crop. (Spain is the world’s second largest almond producing country. The United States is the number one world almond producer with California producing roughly eighty percent of the world’s almond crop.)

This is a cookie with an interesting history. Spanish Almendrados have been traced to the 15th Century. Some food historians believe that the Almendrado is, in fact, evidence of the Sephardic Jewish influence on Spainish cuisine. Javier Zafra, in his book Flavors of Sephardic Spain, makes the point that the Spanish Inquisition forced many Jewish Spaniards to convert to Catholicism or flee the country. The authenticity of their conversions was frequently challenged, however. In an effort to prove their Catholic bonafides, some of these “conversos” sent their daughters to convents to serve as nuns. Those young girls, Zafra argues, carried their Jewish family recipes to the convents with the flourless almond cookie, originally a Passover treat, being one of them.