Polvoron - The European Version of Chinese Cookies

Someone recently bought back this box of polvoron from the Philippines. It's a soft and very crumble Spanish shortbread made of flour, sugar, milk and nuts... and since this is from the Philippines, shortening of course. =P The Philippines adopted it as a part of their culture, apparently, because they were a colony of Spain. This box came with a giddying number of interesting assorted flavours - original, cashew, peanut, coffee, cookies and cream, ube (purple yam), and pinipig (immature grains of glutinous rice pounded until flat and toasted).

The flavours had me gleefully excited... I had tried ube-flavoured desserts in the Philippines, but not in a baked product. Also, I had never heard of pinipig before this.

The original flavour was a fine, powdery milk cake... very smooth as it melts in your mouth, except for a sandy crunch from the granular sugar. 

The cashew and peanut flavours were most reminiscent of crumbly Chinese New Year peanut and cashew cookies... y'know the crumbly kind? Only milkier. The cashew polvoron had a slight buttery and nutty taste, but it was very faint compared to the milky taste. There were also bits of cashew nuts inside. The peanut polvoron had a moderate peanut butter taste and  bits of peanut inside. Milkier and less peanutty than the Chinese New Year cookies. It was because of these two flavours that I thought of polvorons as the Spanish version of Chinese cookies... the powdered almond cookies from Macau also comes to mind.

The cookies and cream polvoron was surprisingly faithful to the cookies and cream taste, much to my delight. Exactly like a sweet cream & cookies ice cream or shake... you can imagine that the milky taste of the polvoron helps in the execution. Or you could also think of it as a crumbly biscuit version of cookies and cream chocolate (y'know, the white chocolate embedded with cookie crumble?), since it's so smooth.

The ube polvoron had a strong yam smell even from 30-50cm away... which is unusual for dry cookies at room temperature. Naturally, it had a very strong purple yam taste... the kind you get when you eat purple yam ice cream in Southeast Asia. It was like a smooth pasty yam fudge with crunchy granular sugar inside.

The coffee polvoron also had a strong coffee flavour with some extra depth due to added cocoa powder.

The pinipig polvonron, however, was disappointing as it just tasted like rice crispies... I guess together with the milk though it was interesting, because it was like those cereal milk drinks, perhaps?

Overall, I thought the flavours were well-curated - all flavours that went well with milk. AND each was excellently and uniquely executed... they all had unique, strong and authentic flavours, and although the texture was generally the same, each flavour made me think of the texture through a slightly different perspective. They would have been rather perfect without the shortening.

If I visit the Philippines again, I'll be on the lookout for the butter versions...

Found these bakes interesting? Explore more unusual cookies and unusual pastries from around the world!