It doesn’t really seem like the holidays unless we produce at least one generous batch of ensaimadas in the Marketman household. One year we gave them away as Christmas presents and we baked over 100 of them which was rather exhausting, so never again on that scale… But New Year’s Day had come and gone and several queso de bolas were still in the fridge, screaming to melt into and top an ensaimada, so we finally baked up a batch for a merienda a few days later…

Our guest of honor was an old classmate from highschool who has lived in France for 17 years doing volunteer work for a Christian theatre group. She grew up in Manila and still comes to visit family. We made a batch of Marc Medina’s “hinayupak” ensaimadas with a few alterations to the recipe and they turned out absolutely wonderful. These are less work than the recipe I featured here, but the results were still delicious. We served them with tea, coffee or hot chocolate and to our surprise, it was the first time our friend had ever tasted a homemade ensaimada. Her initial reaction? “It’s like a brioche with cheese!” Which is so true! And yes, we like it a golden color, not the blond lightness so prevalent in many commercial ensaimadas these days…

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