Bones of saints

How to make holy bones .

With the festival of All Saints , each city or region of our country gets down to work and begins to prepare sweets and desserts of the moment.

Among all these sweets there is one that extends throughout almost all the geography, the fritters and the bones of the saint .

Today we have prepared that, holy bones . It is a marzipan candy that when shaped like a canutillo is filled with yolk candy. Its name comes from the way they are prepared, elongated and cylindrical, reminiscent of a bone with its marrow, very typical of the day of the dead.

Although the use of marzipan in the cuisine of our country begins with the Andalusian era, the preparation of this dessert dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. Surely to coincide with the harvest of the almond, this marzipan-based dessert is prepared for the day of the dead.

Although this sweet is spread throughout most of the geography, there are communities where similar own sweets are incorporated, such as panellets , in the area of ​​Catalonia, and the bones of San Expedito , in the southern area of ​​Spain, all with almonds and marzipan as the protagonist.

It is true that, as in the past, most parties are no longer celebrated, but what has become clear is that thanks to our gastronomic repertoire, it is easy to keep the party on the table with this recipe or with All Saints’ Recipes .

Preparation of the marzipan base

1. In the case that we want to use raw whole almonds, the first thing we will do is give them a boil to be able to remove the skin easily.
2. We dry the almonds with a kitchen paper and crush them as much as possible.
3. I advise you to include 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar to the almonds when crushing them, this way we will avoid that they turn into an oily paste, it will be a loose and ground almond. We reserve. If we use almonds previously grated this step we can skip it.
4. In a saucepan add the water and sugar. We remove while the water is heating to dilute the sugar.
5. Let it cook while boiling for 1 or 2 minutes, creating a light syrup.
6. We add the syrup to the grated almond little by little, integrating it as we add it. It is important that we do not add too much water, that is why we must keep valuing so that we do not have a too wet mass.
7. In the case of using whole grated almonds by ourselves, much less water will be necessary than if we buy the already grated almonds.
8. It is better to add the syrup little by little, knead it and continue adding if necessary. In my case, about 65 ml was enough. syrup.
9. Add to the dough the zest of a lemon that we have previously washed and dried. Always without reaching the white part, we do not want it to become bitter. We integrate well and form a ball with the marzipan dough
10. Let it sit and dry a little for about 2 hours.

Kneading and marzipan shape

1. On the kitchen counter, place a baking paper and sprinkle with powdered sugar or ground sugar.
2. We take a portion of the marzipan dough and roll it out with a rolling pin.
3. We must leave it with a thickness no greater than 3 mm. Otherwise we would have too strong bones.
4. With the help of a ruler and a knife, cut the dough into strips of about 5 cm. Wide.
5. With a stick that is used for skewers we make small incisions in the marzipan strips to make the characteristic design.
6. We cut each strip into pieces of 6 cm.
7. We will need the help of a wooden stick to make some reeds with each of the portions that we have cut. I have used the handle of a wooden spoon.
8. Press lightly at the junction of the two edges and let the beads dry for a few hours. We reserve.

Preparation of the yolk cream

1. While the bones are drying we prepare the yolk cream. We separate the whites from the yolks and beat the yolks. We reserve.
2. In a saucepan we make a syrup with the water and sugar. We incorporate the two ingredients in a saucepan and cook the syrup for about 5 minutes. We remove from the fire.
3. We add, little by little, while we integrate with a rod, the syrup to the yolks. It is important that we do this process carefully so that the yolks do not get to curdle.
4. We put the mixture in a bowl and put it in a bain-marie, stirring almost without stopping, until it has thickened. This process will take us about 30 minutes.
5. It is essential that we have a very thick cream since, although it cools a little thicker. It must have enough consistency to be stable inside the marzipan bones.
6. We let the cream cool before storing it in the fridge for an hour.

Assembly and final presentation of the bones of saint

1. We put the yolk cream in a pastry bag and fill the marzipan bones.
2. We prepare a glaze with icing sugar and water.
3. We combine both ingredients and mix them until a very thick cream is created.
4. Not much water will be necessary, we can test, but with 5 tablespoons of water it will be enough.
5. We dip the bones in the glaze with two forks and we place them on a grid to drain.
6. We wait for the glaze to dry before handling them.

It only remains to enjoy a typical sweet of All Saints’ Day. They are a real wonder and if they are even more homemade, great.

Be sure to enjoy all the yummy sweets in our dessert recipes . You can see all the photos of the step by step in the next album.  

Tips for some fluffy saint bones

• The traditional thing is to fill our saint’s bones with sweet yolk , a syrup enriched with yolks that is cooked until it thickens.
• Today there are multiple variants of this dessert, using different creams such as coconut filling, chocolate, angel hair or even adding different colors and flavors to marzipan.
• Although its elaboration is simple, it requires some skill and time, working the marzipan can be delicate.
• Even so, I encourage you to get down to work and spend an afternoon preparing this sweet, I assure you that if you like the bones of a saint, those you make at home will fall in love. In my opinion they are incredible, better than the ones I have been lucky enough to ever try, yummy.