Ensaimada de Mallorca

The ensaïmada is a pastry product from Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, commonly found in southwestern Europe, Latin America and the Philippines. The ensaïmada de Mallorca is made with strong flour, water, sugar, eggs, mother dough and a kind of reduced pork lard named saïm in Catalan, which gives the pastry its name. The handmade character of the product makes it difficult to give an exact formula, so scales have been established defining the proportion of each ingredient, giving rise to an excellent quality traditional product. The pastry apparently has a Jewish origin, deriving from bulemas, using lard instead of olive oil as a means of escaping the suspicions of the authorities during the Inquisition. The first written references to the Mallorcan ensaïmada date back to the 17th century. At that time, although wheat flour was mainly used for making bread, there is evidence that this typical pastry product was made for festivals and celebrations.

Source: Wikipedia