Tortas de Aceite

Sevillian olive oil wafers rolled to transparency with anise and sesame, baked until they shatter

Origin: Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville, Spain

From the journey of Anise.

Tortas de aceite are the thinnest and plainest thing anybody makes with anise, and they are one of the most complete expressions of the Andalusian larder: olive oil, wheat, sesame, sugar, and the seed the Arabs left behind. They come from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a small town on the ridge above Seville, and they have been made there for as long as anyone can date with confidence. The anise is the Andalusi inheritance. Spanish holds two words for the seed and uses both: anís, descended straight from the Latin, and matalahúva, which comes from the Andalusi Arabic ḥabbat ḥulwa, the sweet grain. A Sevillian baker says matalahúva. The seed came west along North Africa with Arab agronomy and crossed into al-Andalus with the citrus and the sugar cane; Ibn al-'Awwām gave instructions for growing it at Seville in the twelfth century. The defining technique is a hot anise-and-sesame oil. The olive oil is warmed with the seeds until they release their perfume and then cooled and worked into the dough, so the flavour is dissolved through the fat rather than merely suspended in the crumb. The dough is then rolled or pressed out until it is very nearly transparent, sprinkled with sugar, and baked hot and fast until it blisters into an uneven landscape of bubbles and shatters at a touch. The wrapping is part of the object. The commercial tortas that made the town's name have been folded by hand into squares of waxed paper since 1910, one at a time, by women who do it at a speed that has to be watched to be believed. It is now one of the few industrial foods in Europe still packaged entirely by hand, and it is the reason the biscuit survives the journey out of Andalusia intact. They are eaten with coffee in the morning, with a glass of sweet wine in the evening, and, in a habit Seville is quietly attached to, crumbled over ice cream.

Ingredients

Anise Oil

150 ml extra-virgin olive oil, a mild Andalusian arbequina or hojiblanca rather than anything peppery
2 tsp anise seed
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 strip lemon peel, pared with no pith

Dough

330 g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
5 g fast-action dried yeast
40 g caster sugar
0.75 tsp fine sea salt
100 ml warm water
2 tbsp anisette, aguardiente de anís, or dry sherry

To Finish

60 g granulated sugar, for the tops
2 tsp anise seed, for the tops

Method

Warm the olive oil gently with the anise seed, sesame seed, and lemon peel over a low heat until it is just too hot to touch and the seeds are fragrant, about four minutes. Do not let it fry or smoke. Take off the heat and leave to infuse and cool completely, at least thirty minutes.
Fish out and discard the lemon peel, leaving the seeds in the oil.
Combine the flour, yeast, caster sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add the warm water, the anisette, and the cooled anise oil with all its seeds, and bring together into a soft dough.
Knead for six to eight minutes until smooth and supple. The dough is oily and will not tighten as a bread dough does; it should feel silky rather than elastic.
Cover and rest at room temperature for one hour. It will rise only a little, which is correct; the yeast is here for flavour and for the blistering rather than for lift.
Heat the oven to 200°C fan, 220°C conventional. Divide the dough into 16 pieces of about 40 g and roll each into a ball.
Working one at a time on a lightly floured surface, roll each ball out to a rough disc of 13 to 15 cm across and no more than 1.5 mm thick. It should be thin enough that you can see the work surface through it in places.
Lay the discs on lined baking sheets, brush very lightly with water, and scatter each with a generous teaspoon of granulated sugar and a pinch of anise seed. Press the sugar on with the flat of the hand.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until the surface has blistered into irregular bubbles, the sugar has caramelised in patches, and the edges are deep gold. Watch them from ten minutes; they go from perfect to burnt in under a minute.
Cool flat on a rack. They will crisp as they cool and should shatter cleanly when broken.

Notes

Use a mild olive oil. A robust picual will dominate the anise and make the torta bitter; arbequina, hojiblanca, or any gentle early-harvest oil is right. They keep for two to three weeks in an airtight tin and are traditionally stacked between squares of greaseproof paper. If they soften, three minutes in a 160°C oven brings them back. The classic Sevillian variation replaces half the anise on top with cinnamon and sugar. A savoury cousin, tortas de aceite saladas, omits the sugar entirely and doubles the salt and sesame, and is eaten with cheese and manzanilla. Crumbled over ice cream or served alongside a glass of Pedro Ximénez, the sweet version is the standard end to a Seville dinner.

The Gastrographer

Name: Tortas de Aceite
Prep time: 35 min
Cook time: 14 min
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: 16
Cuisine: Spain
Ingredients: 150 ml extra-virgin olive oil, a mild Andalusian arbequina or hojiblanca rather than anything peppery; 2 tsp anise seed; 2 tbsp sesame seeds; 1 strip lemon peel, pared with no pith; 330 g plain flour, plus extra for rolling; 5 g fast-action dried yeast; 40 g caster sugar; 0.75 tsp fine sea salt; 100 ml warm water; 2 tbsp anisette, aguardiente de anís, or dry sherry; 60 g granulated sugar, for the tops; 2 tsp anise seed, for the tops

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control