La Mona de Pascua.. a typical delicious Catalan cake for Easter!

Food and Drink on February 18, 2010 5:28 pm

For many Christians Easter means the end of a long and gruelling 40 days of lent, giving up your favourite thing, whether it’s chocolate or Facebook! Whatever you gave up this Lent, Easter is about celebrating what you have.

Traditionally at Easter time in the UK, ´Simnel cake´, a rich fruit cake is eaten to celebrate the end of a long fast.

Easter week here in Barcelona, also known as ´Semana Santa´ (sacred week), would not be complete without making the ´Mona de Pascua´ cake, ´Mona´, a Moroccan term meaning gift.

Traditionally given by a godfather and godmother to their godchildren at Easter, the original cake is like a gigantic doughnut, containing boiled eggs, the amount of eggs depending on the age of the godchild.

Why the eggs? The most dedicated of Catholics would go without meat or eggs over lent, so eggs were saved and used on Easter day, however, Mona Pascua’s don’t have to be so eggy these days! Now there are all sorts of crazy and elaborate modern day versions of the cake, oh Barcelona have a slightly more appetising version of the Mona de Pascua to offer!

Making the Mona Pascua

Ingredients

Sponge

• 4 eggs
• 150g of Sugar
• 150g of flour
• 20g of almond flour
• 5g of yeast
• 2 beaten egg whites
• 50g of butter

For the Filling

• 300g of Peach Jam

To Garnish

• 250g of dark chocolate
• 125g of butter
  

Instructions:

1) Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl

2) Mix the flour and yeast together in a separate bowl

3) Gradually add the mixture of flour and yeast through a sieve (to avoid creating any lumps) to the egg and sugar mixture

4) Stir constantly while adding the almond flour

5) Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until they form peaks

6) Once they are half whisked, add 50g of sugar, once whisked blend in with the flour and egg mixture

7) Turn the final mix out into a greased and flour sprinkled mould

8 ) Place in the oven at 180 ºC for about 40-45 minutes

9) Remove the sponge, allow to cool, cut in half and spread with the jam filling

10) Finally, stir and melt the chocolate and butter together, cover the sponge with the chocolate and allow to cool. Why not try adding your own final touch, some decorated eggs? A few feathers? Maybe a few miniature chicks? Go nuts!

Let us know how your Mona Pascua turned out, hopefully a success? Tell us how you spent your Easter and how the cake went down!

Rochelle

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