Barquillos

Paper-thin wafers rolled round a dowel in the seconds before they set.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 120 g plain flour
• 120 g caster sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 80 g butter, melted and cooled
• 60 ml water
• 0.25 teaspoon salt
• 0.5 teaspoon vanilla

Method

1. ROLLED IN THE SECONDS BEFORE THEY SET, and that is the entire difficulty. A wafer is pliable for about eight seconds out of the pan and brittle after that. Have the dowel in your hand before the wafer comes off the heat, and bake them ONE AT A TIME however slow that feels.
2. Whisk the whites with the sugar and salt until frothy but not stiff. Stiff meringue gives you a thick spongy wafer.
3. Flour in, then the water, then the melted butter and vanilla. Whisk to a smooth batter the thickness of single cream and rest it 20 minutes.
4. Heat a heavy flat pan over a low heat. Too hot and the edge is black before the middle is dry; the batter wants to dry out rather than fry.
5. A scant tablespoon in the middle, spread immediately with the back of a spoon to a 14 cm circle as thin as you can get it. You should almost see the pan through it.
6. 2 minutes, until the edge lifts and is pale gold and the surface is matt rather than wet.
7. Lift it with a palette knife onto a board, lay a 1 cm wooden dowel or a chopstick along one edge, and roll it up firmly. Slide the dowel out.
8. If one cracks, it has cooled. Put it back on the pan for 10 seconds and it becomes pliable again -- this works twice and then the wafer gives up.
9. Cool on a rack and store airtight the moment they are cold. They take up moisture from the air within an hour and go chewy.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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