We pay less attention to sweets than they deserve. We take them at the end of a meal, for dessert, or at the end of the meal a whimsical outburst while strolling downtown on a Sunday. We only take sugar seriously to criticize it, and too often we forget that a large part of the greatness of a gastronomy is in its sweets section.
In the case of Catalan food, this is undoubtedly the case. With a menu of typical desserts born from peasant traditions, convent sweets and Arab inheritance, Catalan sweets are a delight, with a sample that goes from cakes to chocolates, through sweets based on dried fruits and desserts with cheese included.
You may already know in depth about the salty part of our gastronomy but if you have not yet immersed yourself in the sweet, we bring you a list of the best traditional Catalan desserts to start doing it. And if you are already an expert on the subject, we want to hear your voice, gulafre, and for you to explain to us which Catalan sweets should also be on this list.
Mel i mató, the Catalan version of the cheese trolley
Few desserts are simpler and wiser combinations than a cheese with a sweet. Before we learned to assemble French cheese boards accompanied by quince jelly, a Catalan dessert was born with the deep wisdom hidden in traditional things. Cheese and honey, two basic and common products, united to create a dessert that is, without a doubt, a symbol of Catalan identity: Mel i Mató.
The name sure helps. It seems almost like a little poem, an edible version of the saying “one lime and one sand”. Mel i mató, the caress of sweetness and the fresh and acidic consistency of a cheese. El mató, by the way, resembles recuit, but they are not the same. Although they are made in similar ways, curdling the milk and straining it through a cloth (like ricotta), mató is originally made from goat’s milk and recuit from sheep’s milk.
And although nowadays both are usually made with cow’s milk, few of us think of many nuances when we see it on the menu. If mel i mató appears, the success of the dessert is assured. And if it comes with a handful of walnuts, the result sends us straight to Catalan sweet heaven.
Catànies, the original ferrero rocher
If there is something addictive in this life, it’s the cathànies. Perhaps because they are small and so it is easier to lose control. We owe them to the town of Vilafranca del Penedès and they are balls made of almond paste, hazelnut, milk, cocoa and sugar. Inside, a toasted and caramelized marcona almond. As not to take a bite.
Like mel i mató, they are a good summary of the simple and great origin of many sweet traditions in Catalonia: chocolate (let us not forget our relationship with the) for the sweet and nuts for the crunchy. As Barça’s former coach Ronald Koeman used to say in his macaronic Spanish: “Youdon’t need to say anything else.”
Agramunt nougat, nougat, nougat, nougat
It is one of the best nougat in Catalonia, and we are lucky to have it in Barcelona. It has been made in the same way since the seventeenth century, carefully handcrafted in the village of Agramunt in the Urgell region. Forget Jijona, and look towards the province of Lleida, where one of its villages produces one of the most popular nougats in Catalonia.
From there, in fact, comes Torrons Vicens, one of the most popular brands, specialized, now, in strange nougats. And although, in principle, it is something typical of Christmas, we have become accustomed to eating them at any time of the year, and it is one of those typical sweets ideal to give as a gift and take a good piece of Catalonia wherever you go.
Borregos de Cardedeu, breakfast of champions
Since 1770 the recipe for borregos has been made with care in the bakeries of Cardedeu. The bread dough is used to make long, thin sticks, which are then coated with water and oil and baked until golden brown. It is then cut into slices of considerable thickness and put back in the oven.
If you want to try it at home, we invite you to take the plunge because the recipe is very simple and you will only need flour, sugar, butter, yeast, oil, salt, eggs and matalahúva. And if you want the full experience, we recommend you to dip them in wine or milk while having a snack or breakfast, and feel, all of a sudden, like a pagés ready for any feina de campo.
Panellets, an Arab dessert for a Christian party
Gastronomy always has a family tree, a journey through history that explains where the dish we eat comes from. Although it is difficult to determine its birth panellets are a good example of the Arab presence in the Peninsula. Sugar, nuts, lemon? is there much difference between a Catalanpanellet and those Arab sweets full of sugar that are sold in the pastry shops of the Raval?
The most curious thing is that the traditional Catalan dessert that brings us closer to the Arab culture is also the most representative of one of the most important Christian festivals: Easter. The big day of the panellet is All Saint’s Day, where this typical sweet fills the city’s pastry shops. Such a typical dessert, by the way, also had to have its own contest, so if you are curious about it, in Barcelona you have a place where the best ones are made.
Catalan cream
what can we tell you about crema catalana at this point that you don’t already know? Although it may not seem like it, there are always new things to learn from one of our star dishes. For not getting too long, we leave you a link to this ticket with some curiosities about it.
However, we will tell you one of them, so that no one confuses you: crema catalana is not the same as the Frenchcreme brulée . The differences are small, but essential. Catalan cream has milk and French cream has cream. The first one is prepared in a saucepan and has citric touches and the second one is finished in a bain-marie and has some liquor. On the last difference we have no proof, but no doubts either: the Catalan cream is richer than its French twin.
Carquinyolis, crac! good bye to your teeth
The name of the carquinyoli is an onomatopoeia that warns us of its consistency. This dry, hard cookie cracks when broken, and although it never breaks a tooth (or it shouldn’t), its consistency and almond pieces inside keep you on your toes, and beg you to dip this dessert in milk or coffee.
They are very easy to make. All you need is flour, almonds, sugar and egg, although you can also add lemon peel and cinnamon. They have a texture similar to toast as they are made with the same technique as biscote and it is very popular, as mentioned above, to dip them in coffee.
Cocas, the Catalan pizza
If with the crema catalana we don’t have much to tell you that you don’t already know, with the coca we find ourselves in more or less the same situation. There is a reason why both have earned the fame of being the most representative sweets of our land and their names are heard even by hearsay beyond our borders. If you want to find out more about them, you can take a look at these curiosities will be no less.
The greatness of one of the most typical and representative Catalan desserts is its versatility. Coco is sweet, but also salty. Spongy or crunchy. This chameleon-like dough serves as a first, second, dessert and snack, depending on the format in which it is consumed. In short, a master invention of the Catalan pastry whose best version, in case you want to try it, is manufactured in Barcelona.
Tortell de reis, the childhood in a candy
It’s our particular roscón de reyes, although we add a touch of marzipan to make it more consistent (and yes, more filling). What does not change is the traditional day to eat them, January 6.
In Catalonia it’s crazy, and few desserts sell more for just one day a year. Roscón ice cream, sugar free roscones, lists about the best roscón… With a somewhat anxious obsession, our country indulges in this sweet treat during the week that is its turn, with the voracity of one who knows that the idyll will soon come to an end. It seems exaggerated, but when you try one of them (perhaps many months away now) you will understand the reason for all this enthusiasm.
Braç de gitano, a bad name for a delicious dessert
Someday we will talk about the very curious legend that circulates in Barcelona about the origin of the brazo de gitano, but as we do not have space or time in this ticket we will limit ourselves to say that it is impossible to conceive it without that layer of caramelized or powdered sugar (according to the tradition of each one) that covers it.
In the filling, however, there are two teams: team chocolate and team cream. Its presence in traditional Catalan pastry shops is obligatory, and its color, with the white of the dough and filling and the golden brown sugar on the surface, is a clear summary of the palette of colors used in the most classic Catalan pastries.
Pa de pessic, our sponge cake
Egg and flour are the star ingredients of this sweet, cousin brother of the sponge cake. That and the sugar, lemon and butter round out one of the heartiest sweets on the list. So much so that a single piece can fill more than one. By the way, there are also chocolate ones. I say nothing and I say everything.
The name, by the way, already indicates the vice it provokes. The pa de pessic (bread to pinch), was distributed in the processions and people, unable to wait to get home, did with the cake the same thing you do with the tip of the bread, pinch a little piece to calm hunger.
Neulas, the sweet straw for sipping champagne
It is a good complement to other sweets although they can also work perfectly on their own. It is from the wafer family and typical of Christmas, although much lighter and with a different flavor. They are made with flour, pork lard, sugar, flour, egg white and lemon peel.
There are records of this typical sweet in Catalan recipe books from the Middle Ages, and although they are not the most common in our day to day, they are a fixed part of the Christmas dessert sampler. However, what they certainly did not expect in the Middle Ages when they talked about this sweet is that its most common use a few centuries later would be the one we give it now in celebrations: to dip the neula in the glass of cava.
Chuchos or Xuixos, the star of Girona
In New York, home of the cronut and other sweet dementias, the city where sugar deliriums are crowned and people queue up for a square croissant, they already know: xuixo is the bomb. The typical sweet of Girona a brioche dough filled with pastry cream, fried and covered with sugar can be tasted at the Little Spain market in the U.S. city, demonstrating with this trip that this Catalan delicacy has little to envy to other world-famous buns.
Born, it seems, around 1918 in a confectionery workshop opened in 1912 in the Corte Real street in Girona run by Emili Puig Burch, the sweet was gaining success during the twentieth century, declined in the early twenty-first century, and now has regained strength thanks to awards that point to the best Xuixo of the year giving again to the Gironins in particular, and to the Catalans in general, a path to follow. By the way, a silly secret: the xuixo is fried with the cream already inside the bun, it is not enough to put it in afterwards.