Medialunas

Argentina's exquisitely tender, honey-glazed croissant: smaller and sweeter than the French original, with a shatteringly crisp outer layer giving way to an intensely buttery, slightly chewy interior, dipped in a honey syrup that makes them glisten. Medialunas are the breakfast of Buenos Aires: eaten with café con leche at a marble-top table, at every corner café (confitería), every morning.

Origin: Buenos Aires, Argentina

From the journey of Wheat.

Medialunas (half-moons) are Argentina's adaptation of the Viennese croissant, introduced by the large wave of European, particularly Italian and Spanish, immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Argentine bakers sweetened and modified the French/Viennese croissant, adding more sugar, reducing the layers slightly, and glazing with a honey syrup that gives medialunas their characteristic sticky shine and addictive sweetness. Argentina developed its own distinct café and bakery culture, and the medialuna is the centrepiece of the desayuno Porteño (Buenos Aires breakfast) just as the croissant is to Paris.

Ingredients

  • 500 g strong white bread flour
  • 80 g sugar
  • 10 g salt
  • 10 g instant yeast
  • 250 ml whole milk, warm
  • 1 Egg
  • 30 g butter for dough, softened
  • 250 g butter for lamination, cold
  • 60 g honey (for glaze)
  • 60 g sugar (for glaze)
  • 60 ml water (for glaze)

Method

  1. Make the dough: combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast. Add warm milk, egg and softened butter. Knead 8 minutes. Wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.
  2. Beat the cold lamination butter between baking paper into a 20×20cm square. Refrigerate to keep firm.
  3. Roll dough into a 40×20cm rectangle. Place the butter square in the centre, fold dough over it. Roll and fold (letter fold) three times, refrigerating 30 minutes between each fold.
  4. Roll the laminated dough to 4mm. Cut into elongated triangles. Roll from the wide base toward the point, stretching gently. Curl into a crescent shape.
  5. Prove on lined sheets for 2 hours until puffy. Bake at 190°C/375°F for 18–20 minutes until golden.
  6. While hot, brush twice with the honey glaze (simmer honey, sugar and water together until glossy). They should glisten.
The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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