Friends we met in Romania wrote about their quest to find cookies shrouded in secrecy in Madrid. Secluded Spanish nuns make these elusive cookies, recipes prepared with love dating back to the time of the Romans some say. The cloistered nuns, nuns that reside in monasteries or convents away from the general public, bake the special treats as a means to make money for the church. There are hushed conversations in Madrid about were to purchase the somewhat mysterious cookies, but they remain a bit of a challenge to track down to this day.
We find good cookies hard to resist at the best of times. A treasure hunt to locate secret cookies in Madrid, an ancient Spanish city is even more compelling! Here’s what we found on our quest for secret nun cookies in Madrid.
Our friends didn’t reveal all of the information needed to find the cookies because figuring out their location is half of the fun! We had had some pictures and a few clues to go on originally. Then we were lucky enough to find a crucial piece of the puzzle! At the end of a terrific food tour we took in Madrid, our tour leader left us with a very valuable list. A list that included numerous places, local favorites for tapas and beer, and lesser known tourist attractions like the name of the plaza closest to where secret cookies in Madrid could be found!
We entered the plaza with confidence, a look of determination clearly showing on our faces. We were focused and careful as we looked for more clues with critical eyes.
Just after we took this picture our confidence started waver a bit. We walked in the direction Maks pointing, looking at each door trying to figure out which one the cookies were behind. The confusion began to show on our faces when a jolly looking plump woman approached us smiling with her arms open wide. She lead us to the right door and then we had to figure out how to get through it.
Lucky for us some other lucky cookie hunters were on the way out with their box of tasty treats. The bottom rectangle panel on the left with the pull on it opened and we jumped through.
Down the hall and off to find some cookies!!! Then we found this cute guy. A statue of a bear eating from a strawberry tree, the national symbol for Madrid. We followed the Torno sign and took the hall to left.
We arrived here next and now know you can get some nun cookies right through that door!
Inside the little door on the wall is a lazy susan with three separate chambers (the torno). To the right of the lazy susan is a short list of the different types of cookies and their prices.
We stood at the open door to decide which cookies we wanted, trying to figure out how we would communicate our choice to the nuns when the lazy susan started to spin and three boxes of cookies came around and stopped.
Assuming these cookies were our choices we selected a type of shortbread, placed some money on the top of the box of cookies we wanted and watched the lazy susan spin again. when it came back around our cookies were in a bag and our change was tucked under the corner.
Feeling rather pleased with ourselves we retrieved our cookies and the change and skittered back to the hall. Our friend had had a little more self-control than we did. They waited to dive into their cookies until they arrived back at their hostel. Not us, we moved back into the hall before the lazy susan and tore into the box to get a taste!
We’d done it! And the cookies were very good making it worth the extra effort to track them down. As we sat in the hall munching cookies and celebrating our successful cookie expedition two women entered the hall. They were hunting for the cookies too. We chose a type of shortbread loaded with a healthy dose of powdered sugar, they chose lemon vanilla cookies. We traded a couple to see how each others tasted. The lemon vanilla ones were very good as well!
We didn’t eat all of them in the hall. We slid the cookie box back in the bag and armed with the special list we had acquired on our food tour, set out in search of tasty tapas and beer. It was so much fun tracking down secret cookies in Madrid! If you plan to visit Madrid, hunting for them is great to do with kids. Although, Rob and I loved looking for them too, in fact, it hard to say who enjoyed the cookie expedition more, us or Mak!
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