Pestinos

Pestinos is a Spanish sweet pastry. Pestinos means ' Don't Get On My Nerves'. This is a very delicate pastry made with butter and oil, it's really a melt in the mouth pastry. The pastry procedure is almost like a choux pastry but without eggs. I have also made a chilli chocolate sauce as a accompaniment for this, it's totally optional, you can leave it just with the syrup topping which is equally good as well.

Recipe adapted from Spanish recipes. To check out the original recipe click here
Makes 25 to 30
Ingredients:
Plain flour- 2 1/2 cups
Butter-2 tbsp
Sunflower oil- 3/4 cup
Orange juice-3 tbsp
Water-1/4 cup
Zest of 1 orange
Cinnamon powder-1/2 tsp
For the syrup:
Honey- 1/2 cup
Water- 1/4 cup
Zest of 1 lemon
Rose water- 1/2 tsp
For Chilli Chocolate Sauce:( Optional)
Dark Chocolate- 50 g
Butter- 2 tsp
Chilli flakes-1/4 tsp
Oil for frying the fritters.
Method:
Heat 3/4 cup of oil in a pan, add the zest of 1 orange, heat it for 2 minutes. Switch off the flame, let the oil cool down completely to room temperature.
In a saucepan add butter, orange juice and 1/4 cup of water. When the butter has melted add the cinnamon, stir well. Now add the flour all at once and then immediately add the oil, take it off from the flame. Stir vigorously until it forms a smooth dough. Cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour.
Meanwhile make the syrup. Boil the honey , lemon zest and water for 5 minutes stirring continously until it reaches a syrupy consistency, finally add rosewater and switch off the flame.
To make the chocolate chilli sauce, heat the chocolate in a bowl placed on top a sauce pan simmering with water. When the chocolate has melted, add the butter and chilli flakes mix well. Take the bowl away from the saucepan and let it cool down.
Now start preparing the pastry. Dust the work surface with flour, roll out the pastry into a square, cut it into small 5 cm square. Turn the square like a diamond shape, join the two ends and seal it with water. Repeat with the remaining dough. Heat the oil in a pan, fry 2 to 3 pieces at a time until they turn golden brown in colour. Drizzle with the syrup, dust with icing sugar. If you are preparing chocolate sauce, drizzle some on top.
Serve warm or cold.
Note:
If your dough looks too crumbly or if it starts disintegrating in the oil, don't panic. You can resue your dough by adding more water and flour.

This recipe goes to the event A.W.E.D Spain hosted by Priya Mitharwal originally started by DK of Chef In You