Local cuisine – Easter sweets and recipes

Easter is all about tradition, and its most famous dessert is too. Many experts think it originates in convents, where it was traditional for the nuns to make sweets, and was invented to use up stale bread, which was soaked in milk and honey to soften and flavour it. The ingredients and shape of torrijas are similar to other pastries, but there is one thing that makes them different and very Spanish - they are fried in olive oil. After that, they are dusted with sugar, or syrup, honey or wine is drizzled over them, depending on preference. They are the most traditional sweet around Easter, but everyone loves these soft and succulent treats, so they turn up all year round for breakfast, afternoon snacks, or even as dessert. So we recommend trying one of our Easter traditions: go out to see the processions, and take a break for a delicious torrija.

It's not all torrijas and monas de pascua; there is a huge variety of Easter sweets and cakes. Most of them are bite-sized treats, variants on fried pastry with honey (for example, pestiños, very popular in Andalusia), or with sugar (such as buñuelos) or with a cream filling (e.g., bartolillos, a speciality of Madrid). You can also find crisp, delicate fried pastries shaped like flowers, decorated with sugar and chocolate, all over the country, although they are most traditional in Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Extremadura, and Galicia, and roscos de Semana Santa, fried rings of dough flavoured with anise (a classic snack while watching the processions in Andalusia). In northern Spain many people enjoy leche frita for dessert this time of year.