Għadam tal-mejtin – Traditional Maltese Bones

As the weather is now slowly getting cooler, I start to enjoy some more time in my kitchen. Baking is one thing I look forward to at this time of year. Come teatime in the afternoon ( in my case it’s actually coffee) I like to have a little treat to accompany my cup of coffee.

Last week I finally managed to bake a vegan version of a traditional pastry which is very popular in the month of November.

Għadam tal-mejtin – traditional Maltese bones

To make it easier I prepared a stencil for the shape out of baking paper.

I made the pastry using:

• 400g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 200g margarine
• cold water to mix, about 100ml
• 50g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• grated rind of a lemon

The filling only requires:

• 200g ground almonds
• 200g sugar
• 1 tsp almond essence
• some almond milk, enough to make a medium stiff paste.

I cut the pastry using the stencil and put a layer of filling between each two. I just pinched the edges together to seal and baked in a preheated oven at 180C for about 30 minutes. After letting them cool down, I covered in a simple glace’ icing which I made using:

• 100g sifted icing sugar
• 1 tbsp warm water   

Incidentally, I later also used the same ingredients to make a bakewell tart which I had not eaten for a long time. I just added a layer of cherry jam before adding the filling to the tart.