Panellets are traditional sweets from Catalonia that have their origin back in the 18th century, when they were used as blessed food in religious celebrations.
In addition, it is a sweet influenced by Arabic pastries, given its almond base.
Homemade panellets, the star option
Making panellets is simple and not too laborious. Therefore, in recent years, preparing them at home has become a way to bring friends together, teach children the tradition or simply save money and improve the taste of the dessert at home.
Therefore, preparing this dessert at home is a great advantage: the prices of panellets in pastry shops skyrocket during these days and, in addition, we make sure to prepare the dessert with good ingredients.
For children it is a most rewarding activity and, for adults, an ideal option if they prefer to prepare the dessert to their liking, using the ingredients they like the most.
Therefore, this year is the time to
prepare your own panellets at home and follow this beautiful Catalan tradition as a family.
Today we will explain the
recipes to make traditional pine nut panellets , as well as some more modern ones.
The ingredients that we will indicate will help us make
approximately 50 delicious panellets, including 15 pine nut panellets, 15 almond panellets, 10 coconut panellets and 10 cocoa panellets.
Ingredients for approximately 50 panellets:
- 500g almond flour
- 500g icing sugar
- 4 eggs
- Half lemon
- 200 gr pine nuts
- 200g almond kernels
- 100 g of grated coconut
- 100g cocoa powder
Preparation of the dough
1. Mix the almond flour with the icing sugar
2. Add four egg whites, a few drops of half a lemon and mix. The yolks are kept in a separate container (bowl, glass?) to use later.
3. On a clean surface, place the already compacted dough so that it is completely homogeneous.
4. Once it is ready, sprinkle a little wheat flour on the surface we are working on.
5. Take part of the dough and put it on the flour to make a churro that will be divided into portions.
Panellet preparation
There are several ways to coat the panellet depending on the ingredient we add.
It can be an external batter or one that is also introduced into the dough.
Classics: pine nuts and almonds (Subsides: rolled oats, hazelnuts, sesame...)
1. Put the pine nuts on one plate and the almonds on another
2. Add a whole egg to the yolks that we had separated and beat. Dip your fingers in the bowl of beaten eggs.
3. Take one of the portions of dough and round it, leaving the entire ball impregnated with egg.
4. Give it the desired shape and coat the plate with the desired ingredient (pine nuts or almond granules).
5. Once they are coated, they are immersed in the container of beaten eggs.
6. Leave them on a napkin to drain and then transfer them to a baking tray.
7. With the oven hot at 180ºc, insert the panellets for 2 to 3 minutes. Freshly taken out of the oven, to make them shiny, paint them a little on top with a brush dipped in egg.
Classics: coconut and cocoa (Suggestions: coffee, quince, carob flour...)
1. Take part of the dough and divide it into as many parts as there are ingredients we are going to mix.
2. Mix the desired amount with the dough
3. It is given the desired shape and finally:
- A pinch of sugar is added to the tip of the coconut ones (so it will be more golden when it comes out of the oven)
- The cocoa or coffee ones are coated with icing sugar
4. With the oven hot at 180ºc, insert the panellets for about 1 minute
