Nun Cookies of Madrid

September 1st, 2015

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a religious person.  I'm not going to crap all over anyone's religion, because to each their own.  It's just something that for me is not a thing.  But there was something in Madrid that caught my eye from the beginning.

Nun Cookies.

So picture this, cloistered Nuns bake cookies and people buy them.  But you don't actually see the Nuns.  You hit a button on a random door and hope they let you in.  Then, you buy the cookies by saying which one you want (or getting the ones you are given) and pay by way of a Lazy Susan.

Something about this whole thing intrigued me from the start.  We knew this was on our list.

We tried in the morning to find the cookies.  Directions are a bit sketchy, but the actual address is Calle del Codo 3.  Once you find the Mercado de San Miguel (that is a story for another day...when I get the time to write it up), walk on the street running parallel to the right hand side, then walk a little bit more.  Once you see the Number 3 on a random wall, turn right.  At a big, brown door, you hit the top button marked "monjas."  And you wait.  For those of you interested...monjas means Nuns.

The hours for buying Nun Cookies were from 930a to 1p, then 430-830p.  We were there around noon.  And we rang the bell to no avail.  A lovely homeless woman told us to come back in the afternoon.  She was not wearing a bra, so we believed her.  Instead of hanging around the door for a long amount of time, we went into the Mercado and drank cider.  Again though, that is another story I will be telling soon enough.

Smash cut to a post Tapas haze (you will easily sense a theme to this trip).  We wandered back to the Convent of Corpus Christi, hoping to score some Nun Cookies.  The homeless woman greeted us again and did her best to help us get into the convent.  We pressed the button.  Nothing.  We pressed again.  Nothing.  She pressed once, maybe twice.  And nothing,  she told us to wait for five minutes...or, until 5p.  Adele wasn't really sure.  All I could do was smile and nod.  Have I mentioned that I really need to learn Spanish??  Cause I do.  I really do.

We waited a bit, not wanting to give up hope.  And after a button was pressed for the umpteenth time, a voice came from the other end, the buzzer rang, and we pushed the massive door open.  We were in!!

We walked straight until we were greeted by a bear and tree statue (the symbol of Madrid), then we turned left.  Because that is all you can do.  Down the way a little, we saw the Lazy Susan.  As we made our way closer, a Nun (from behind the Lazy Susan) gave us the list of cookies available.  Turns out, there was only one type.  The Sequillos.  A half kilo was €9.  Done.

As we were getting our change from the Lazy Susan, we heard a familiar voice.  Ernest and Mira, the couple from Toronto that we met on our food tour last night (and drank with not even a half hour before) were walking in behind us.  We were all four giddy with excitement over the Nun Cookies.  Adele helped them order (easy enough as the Nuns only had one kind today) and we all walked out together.  After we took a few pictures, of course.

Leaving the convent, we stopped to see the oldest door in Madrid, constructed in 1480.  It was an excellent end to a crazy scavenger hunt.  We said farewell (for now) to our new friends and went back to the hotel for a few minutes.  We had some cookies to consume.

And we learned once we made it to the hotel, a Sequillos is a cinnamon cookie.  Very delicate, almost "sandy" in nature.  It tasted great.  And now, Adele and I have snacks at the ready in our room.  Not that we need anything else at this point...we have barely stopped eating and drinking enough as it is.