Odelia Benarroch and her grandmother Ethelyn spoke Hebrew with one another, but Spanish was often sprinkled in when they discussed food. “Some things were just in Spanish for her,” Odelia, who is a film editor, shares. Ethelyn would make empanadas, the egg and potato dish tortilla Española, a Sephardi eggplant casserole called almoronia, and quesiño, the family name for these marzipan treats. It means small cheese in Spanish, and Odelia thinks it comes from queso de almendras, a cheese made from almonds. 

Ethelyn was raised in Tetouan, a city in northern Morocco along the Mediterranean coast, which was a Spanish protectorate for much of the early 20th century. The Sephardi Jewish community, which migrated there during the Inquisition, spoke Spanish as well as Haketia, a Jedeo-Spanish language that developed in parts of North Africa. “When the Spanish coloniz[ers] came in the 19th century, they were surprised to see that there were people speaking this really weird old Spanish,” Odelia adds. In 1972, Ethelyn moved to Israel.

Whenever she would tell Odelia about her wedding, Ethelyn would share stories of the quesiño that was served. It was part of special occasions like henna ceremonies before a wedding and Purim. This recipe has been passed across blood lines. It originally came from Ethelyn’s Portuguese sister-in-law, who the family called Tita Luna, and later, Ethelyn shared it with her daughter-in-law Danielle, Odelia’s mother. In the family, it’s made with an electric grinder called Uno, Dos, Tres. And Odelia remembers that there was a gentle competition in the family over who prepared the best version, each hand seemed to leave its touch, producing an ever so slightly different quesiño.

Odelia’s mother also likes to add the orange flavored liquor Grand Marnier, a nod to her upbringing in Paris. She and Odelia prepared the quesiño for Purim every year — filling half with little dabs of sunny homemade lemon curd and dunking the other half into chocolate. Her grandmother would check in on  the process, asking about each step. “She would keep an eye on everything — always,” Odelia says, laughing. 

They would wrap up plates of the treats in cellophane with a little bow and deliver their Mishloach Manot (holiday gifts) to friends. “As a child, the whole back seat of the car was full,” Odelia adds. 

Cooking note: The quesiño can be filled with lemon curd or dunked into chocolate. If you want to make the chocolate version, see the variation at the bottom of the recipe.