Mantecaditos are short bread cookies. In the traditional Puerto Rican recipe, Guava jelly is used but many Puerto Rican cooks use other jellies, sprinkles, chocolate and even nuts to make this tasty treat. So use your imagination and have fun with it.
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Mantecaditos ~ Short Bread Cookies
Ingredients
Cookie
- ½ cup unsalted butter* at room temperature
- ½ cup shortening or lard
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tsp almond extract or vanilla
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
Filling
- sprinkles
- guava paste
- pineapple jelly
- grape jelly
- nutella
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cookie sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper, or use an ungreased cookie pan.
- In a large bowl, cream butter, shortening (or lard) and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in almond extract, salt and flour until well combined.
- Divide dough into small balls, about 1 ½ teaspoons each.
- Create an indent in each cookie with your thumb.
- Add filling to the indent in the cookie.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are golden.
- Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Know?
Mantecado is a name for a variety of Spanish shortbreads that includes the polvorón. Often both names are synonymous, but not all mantecados are polvorones. The name mantecado comes from manteca (lard), usually the fat of Iberian pig (cerdo ibérico), with which they are made, while the name polvorón is based on the fact that these cakes crumble easily into a kind of dust in the hand or the mouth.
In Cuba and Puerto Rico, mantecado is an ice cream and in Spain, it may be also the name given to a kind of sweet sherbet.
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