The Spanish are known to possess a sweet tooth which they aptly cater to with their wide range of desserts. Spanish pastries have gained worldwide acclaim due to their unique looks and amazing tastes. Read on to get a taste of the Spanish delights.
Spanish food comes into its full colors in the dessert department. The various cultures that have inhabited the land over the years have each contributed to the vast collection of diverse pastry foods that originate from the land. The Arabs with their cultural delights and the Romans before them with their own tantalizing treats have had a big hand in the development of the sweet tooth section of the Spanish cuisine. Dessert items in Spain can range from fruit and dairy based simple items to the most complicated artisan pastries made from exquisite ingredients such as aromatic seeds like sesame, almonds, poppy seeds and anis.
Spanish Pastry Shops
You will find that the landscape of the Spanish cities is dotted with Spanish pastelerias or pastry shops. These pastry shops will offer you the most beautiful awe inspiring mouth watering handmade pastries you have ever seen. Even a blind man will not be able to resist the temptation of the Spanish pastries as they fill the air with a majestic aroma that will lead you straight into the shop. Amongst all the different pastry items the different kinds of churros are the most popular items. Churros are basically fritters that have an appearance quite like that of giant French fries. However they have nothing to do with potatoes rather they can be compared to the American donut, only without the hole. They are usually cut into lengths and served with a topping of sugar or honey. In the strawberry season you will be able to get churros with strawberries and creams.
Every pastry shop in Spain is bound to showcase cakes that are heavily decorated with whipped cream, honey and almonds. The layers of the cake are filled with egg custard which is also used to fill pastries like the bunuelos. Torrijas are another very popular dessert item to be found in pastry shops. This is basically a Spanish version of bread pudding sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar coated with honey.
The flan de naranja or the orange flan is one of the variations of the traditional flan from Spain. It has a vanilla custard fill and caramel sauce topping. The orange flavor gives a refreshing feel to this particular pastry item. The traditional flan is amongst the most popular pastry items served in Spain although it’s a relatively simple and light dessert. Some Spanish desserts are specifically reserved for the holiday seasons. Amongst these are the turron, mazapan, polvorones and mantecados.
Turron and Pannellets are other popular items to be found in the standard pastry shops. Both these desserts make use of almonds as their main ingredient. Crumble cakes like the Mantecados are part of the sweet tooth tradition of Spain. These soft cakes are good enough to actually melt in your mouth. Magdalenas cakes are small rich tasting sweet cakes that are consumed at breakfast time with the Café on leche. The Spanish pastry artisans are not only known for the wonderful taste of their pastries, they are also incredible craftsmen who compose the most amazing looking pastries one has ever seen.
