A sweet Extremaduran dessert of small fried dumplings made from stale bread soaked soft, bound with egg, and scented with lemon and cinnamon. The dumplings are fried in olive oil until golden, then simmered briefly in sweet, cinnamon-spiced milk and served in shallow bowls with some of the milk. Also known as sapillos, they are a way of using up hard bread and are especially common in northern Cáceres around Holy Week.
Repápalos are a traditional sweet of northern Cáceres, recorded in the Jerte, La Vera, and Campo Arañuelo areas, and are eaten especially during Carnival and Holy Week. Like many bread-based fritters, they are an economical dish built on leftover bread, egg, and milk. A Sephardic origin is sometimes attributed to them, in common with several Iberian fried sweets, though the link is not firmly documented.
Warm, tender dumplings that have drunk up the sweet milk, soft and almost custardy inside with a faintly crisp fried edge. Lemon zest keeps them fresh against the richness of egg and milk, while cinnamon runs through both the dumplings and the bath. Eaten with a spoon, dumpling and spiced milk together, like a loose, comforting pudding.
Stale bread is the base because it has dried out and so soaks up milk without turning to mush, giving the dumplings body; the egg then sets on frying to hold them together. Frying in hot olive oil browns the outside and seals each dumpling so it keeps its shape in the milk. The brief simmer in sweetened milk lets the dumplings absorb liquid and soften through, turning a fried fritter into a spoonable milk pudding.
Variations
Repápalos also exist in a savory form, simmered in a garlic-and-saffron or tomato broth and eaten as a soup rather than a dessert. The sweet version varies in aromatics, with anise or orange zest used alongside or instead of lemon, and some cooks dust the finished dumplings with sugar and cinnamon. Similar Spanish bread-and-egg sweets include torrijas, soaked and fried but not simmered in milk.
On the Palate
Where Repápalos sits in the Spanish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 40 min active + 10 min waiting
- 110 min
Tear the stale bread into small pieces and soak in a little warm milk until soft.
- 28 min
Squeeze out excess milk and mix the bread with beaten egg, lemon zest, and a pinch of cinnamon to a workable mass.
Watch outSqueeze most of the milk out of the soaked bread and mix with egg to a workable mass — too wet and the dumplings fall apart in the oil.
- 37 min
Shape the mixture into small dumplings or quenelles with a spoon.
- 410 min
Fry in hot olive oil until golden on all sides, then drain on paper.
Watch outFry until golden all over so each dumpling is sealed — the browned shell holds its shape when it goes into the milk to simmer.
- 55 min
Warm the remaining milk with sugar, a cinnamon stick, and a strip of lemon peel.
- 66 min
Add the fried dumplings to the sweet milk and simmer gently a few minutes until they swell and soften.
Watch outSimmer gently in the sweet milk just a few minutes until they swell and soften — too long and they turn to mush.
- 74 min
Serve warm in shallow bowls with some of the cinnamon milk spooned over.
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