Coques Bambes, origin of the name and structure
If there is one area in which Mallorcan chefs have really let their imagination run wild, it is in the creation of different varieties of simple savoury pastries or those popular biscuits known as Coques. Their origins seem to date back to medieval times, specifically to the early 15th century, although at that time they were referred to as casques.
This is how they are referred to in the Capítols dels flaquers e de les flaqueres, which governed the bakers’ guild in Mallorca in 1424. The identity between casques and coques is provided by the Llibre del Art del Coch de mestre Robert (Master Robert’s Book of the Art of Cooking); its first known printing dates to 1520, although it seems to have been written in the last quarter of the previous century. His recipe entitled De casquetes begins by saying: Hajas una coca de biscuyt al forn que sia ben bescuytada… (Make a biscuit cake in the oven that is well cooked…), which will serve as the basic ingredient for the proposed recipe.
Coques Bambes
Next, we will look at the variety known as ‘Coques bambes’. It is one of the many types of cocas that form part of the extensive list of sweet cakes in our island’s pastries. There are more than thirty varieties, if we limit ourselves to the most strictly traditional versions. If we add to this number the countless alternatives conceived by each of the different cooks or stay-at-home parents who have prepared and continue to prepare them, the list could reach a number that is almost impossible to determine.
The pastries bearing this name are part of our most legendary and ancient quemuiars, meaning a pastry that can be dipped into milk. They were one of the simplest compositions of our pastries, of which they have been a part with that name since at least the second half of the 17th century. In the beginning, they were a regular part of the snack (collatio) on Christmas Eve. Now, unfortunately, they are one of our sweet pastries in danger of extinction and oblivion, due to the banishment from today’s tables of everything that is likely to provide carbohydrates. If it also does so in the form of sugars and is combined with fat, as pastry products usually require, the curse is multiplied.
They are a quite simple recipe, consisting of flour, eggs, sugar and oil or butter, or both fats. The result is an incredibly soft, moderately elastic dough with a light and very spongy texture and small, fine pores. They have always been identified as having a remarkably light and pleasant taste, appearing from their earliest references under this palatal perspective. It is likely that a certain type of sponge cake found on our tables at the end of the 18th century, called bescuit bàmbol, whose composition and eventual preparation we do not know, had similar characteristics, as its name suggests.
A well-justified surname
We can find them present on some of our tables in times past, appearing under that name in the statements of a Mallorcan crypto-Jewess before the Mallorcan tribunal of the Holy Office between 1677 and 1678. Another early mention of it appears in January 1786, when it was a regular feature on the table of the sweet-toothed Doctor Lloatxim Fiol.
It was probably their light consistency that gave these two pastries their name, perhaps identifying them as a derivative of the word bàmbol, which refers to something swollen and empty or hollow. It is also synonymous with the lightness with which we perceive the wide part of a garment. In the same sense, it is applied to a person who is somewhat foolish and slow-witted, or to its derivative embambat, used in the sense of being or appearing dazed.
Exemplary cakes
These belong to the diverse and varied category of sponge cakes. The essential features of these pastries are the slight sweetness of their dough and their rich texture and flavour. They are made from a dough consisting of flour, eggs, sugar and butter or other edible fats, which gives them a honeycomb structure with delicate walls that melt quickly in the mouth, providing attractive flavours. They usually contain more sugar and fat than flour and are commonly used as a base for other sweeter and more substantial ingredients, such as custard, cream, chocolate, jam, syrup and liqueur.
They owe this peculiar structure to the fact that the starch in the flour and the proteins in the eggs form small honeycombs due to the gas bubbles that divide and fluff up the dough. These gas-filled spheres cause the dough to organise itself into very thin layers formed by the interference with the formation of gluten in the flour and the coagulation of the egg proteins, by the sugar and fat, which also interrupt the gelatinised starch mesh. Sugar and fat can compromise the structure of the sponge cake if they weaken it enough that it cannot support its own weight. This is why other sponge cakes that do not contain flour, such as those made with chocolate, nuts or fruit, can be dense and heavy, but no less delicious.
Typical sponge cakes and cakes, such as English pound cake or French quatre quarts, usually have equal parts of the four main ingredients or products: flour, fat, sugar and egg. The first two, flour and fat, give them structure, while the other two, sugar and egg, make the structure more flexible and weaker as they are absorbed by the first two. The conflict lies in ensuring that they are not too flexible, because then the structure of the cake collapses, but at the same time they must be flexible so that the dough is not heavy and dense. To ensure that the dough incorporates air bubbles quickly, it must be beaten for a long time, as the yeast generates gases too slowly. The resulting texture depends mainly on how long it is beaten.
This characteristic gives them the lightness that justifies their name and makes them particularly suitable for absorbing liquids. The incorporation of these liquids enhances their flavour, adding the juiciness and taste that occasional consumers desire. Their delicate, spongy structure naturally supports this combination for a brief time, requiring rapid and immediate consumption if we wish to enjoy the initial texture. This same capacity makes them particularly suitable as the solid part of a number of combinations with liquid beverages. Those with a milky or similar appearance and consistency are particularly satisfying. In addition to chocolate or coffee with milk, these include horchatas, whether made from rice, tiger nuts, or almonds, as they are particularly suitable for this combination.
Antoni Contreras Mas is a researcher and promoter of Mallorcan gastronomy.