Carnival desserts

Carnival desserts .

We are almost in the middle of Carnival , one of the most important festivals in Galicia and of course in my land, Ourense.

Talking about this party without gastronomy being present is like a table with 3 legs, it is as important as the costume itself. When they come together, carnival and gastronomy form an irresistible couple that gives the best parties of the year.

The traditional cuisine of the Galician carnival, O Entroido, revolves around the attractions of pork and the most traditional dessert recipes .

After the slaughter in November and a couple of months of curing, the chorizos, cachuchas, androllas, lacón, orella, bottles … reach their peak coinciding with the carnival, here they are summarized in the blog’s star recipe, Galician stew .

It is time to bring the best of the house to the table to endure the hard days of revelry that are expected in many towns in the Spanish geography. And desserts are the final icing on that meal, for those with a sweet tooth, O Entroido tastes of glory.

One does not know where to start: pancakes (similar to crepes but finer) sweet or salty, alone or with a touch of honey, chocolate, chestnuts … Also, orellas, Carnival flowers, donuts, fried canes, fritters, crepes, cool and the essential bica of Laza, Trivés or Castrocaldelas. All of them accompanied by good shots of xastré, queimada and liqueur coffee .

Sit back at the table with joy and a good appetite. It is a brief and intense parenthesis of collective extravagance that demands to eat well and have a lot of fun. If you are one of those who also cooks, I propose two ideas to expand the sweetest carnival recipe book, with a compilation of the best blog desserts for these dates, you will find sweets from all over Spain and even the most famous from Italy. Let nothing be missing!

In Galicia abundance is a standard of courtesy. I leave you a Carnival special, recipe book of the dishes of these dates that I have already published for you to take a look at. Happy Carnival!

Carnival Ears
One of the most famous recipes of the Entroido or Carnival, Carnival stars, ears or flakes. These crispy, deep-fried dough portions, coated with a thin layer of icing sugar, look irresistible and delight everyone at home. Its shape is usually similar to the pig’s ears, although in this case the ones you see have a rectangular handkerchief shape.

Carnival
crespillos or fritters Carnival crespillos are very similar in their preparation to fried fritters. As with almost all traditional and “old-fashioned” recipes, each maestro has his booklet, which means that in each family they are prepared with subtle differences. In any case, the base is always the same: flour, eggs, sugar and milk, although there are those who add a splash of anise or cognac.

Carnival Pancakes
When we talk about pancakes and pancakes most say they are different but the truth is that they are very similar. The pancakes, freixó, afilloa, filloga or fisuelo (the name varies depending on the region), are one of the most famous products of Galician gastronomy and are typical of the time of the slaughter and the entroido or carnival, so much so that the authentic ones incorporate pig blood in their preparation.

Caramelized pancakes filled with pastry cream
We are in the middle of Entroido or Carnival and, after the Carnival Ears, perhaps this is the most consumed dessert in all the houses of Galicia since they have become a typical dessert in the time of Don Carnal. They are the typical milk pancakes like those that you can find in all the patisseries or restaurants in Ourense but filled with pastry cream and with a caramelized later with a blowtorch (they are much richer with this touch similar to Catalan cream).

Pumpkin
chulas or calacú Pumpkin chulas are not only typical of the Carnival season, it is also very common to prepare them in Samhain, that is, on All Saints’ Day, Halloween for Anglo-Saxon countries. The fact is that either at carnival or Samhain, you can not go without preparing these chulas. The pumpkin gives them a characteristic softness and absolutely delicious flavor.

Carnival tortillas with pumpkin
If there is a region in Spain that lives the carnival dates with fervor, it is, along with the province of Cádiz, the Canarian community. And, as it could not be less, gastronomically speaking they have a wide repertoire of recipes for these dates. One of those typical carnival recipes are the “carnival tortillas” or Canarian French toast. As all the homemade dishes do not have a unique recipe, each teacher has his booklet and each house is given its own touch. As base ingredients we always have flour, milk, matalauva seeds, eggs and anise, and to add even more flavor to the pumpkin, although it is also very common to prepare it with bananas.

Carnival Flowers
This sweet typical of the dates of Entroido is shaped like a flower thanks to the iron mold we fry this dessert. It belongs to the family of “frying pan fruits”, like the lemon or orange leaves and the carnival ears, delicious crispy and fried doughs flavored with the citrus fruits that come with spring. Today’s recipe is courtesy of Puri Riquelme who lives in Murcia or Entroido as if he were in Galicia.

Reeds or fried beads of O Carballiño
The fried reeds consist of strips or ribbons of dough that were rolled up in a river reed (now metallic canisters are used, and you can even find Teflon so that the dough does not stick) and then they are fried in a soft olive oil. The result is a delicious crispy and golden dough cannilla that combined with the creaminess of the filling and the fine sugar coating turns into a dessert that is hard to forget, a classic in Ourense pastry.

Reeds stuffed with Ricotta cheese (Cannoli siciliani)
These cannoli siciliani consist of reeds made with a fried dough flavored with Marsala wine, filled with a cream of ricotta cheese with frosted fruit. Although originally they were sweets that were prepared only at carnival, today and thanks to the great love for this dessert that exists, not only in Sicily but throughout Italy, they are consumed throughout the year.

Fried
donuts These donuts that I have brought to Madrid are from my mother Rosamari, and since I have memories, it is a recipe that had to be prepared these days to complete the carnival larpeiro tribute. They are not the fluffy donuts of the Candil, nor the type of pasta that they make in Mancha, nor silly or ready as in Madrid, they are the ones that enter the body with a good shot of brown liquor, ideal to finish a meal and start a dinner.

Chulas or fried milk
My grandmother Lucrecia called this dessert fried (very similar to pancakes but thicker), and she kept that name. Although they are very similar to the typical carnival milk chulas, I never saw him throw breadcrumbs, turnip greens, squash (in Pontevedra they call them calacú), cooked chestnuts, white rice or make them with cornmeal. I imagine that she goes by areas and in the Ribeira Sacra (Ourense) she prepared them as her mother previously did, although with lemon zest to flavor them.

Apple fritters
The preparation of this dessert is simple, it is a mass of flour, egg and milk, which is fried in plenty of oil. From this point the options are immense, we can serve them alone, but also filled with cream, cream or chocolate, we can coat them in sugar, cinnamon or bathe them in honey, they can be windy or with some type of accompaniment.

Tarta Larpeira
The result is a sweet and juicy sponge cake that, accompanied by the pastry cream and the final syrup of the preparation, gives it a texture to start and not being able to stop, that is, it is delicious. I encourage you to prepare this cake at home the next time you feel like one of these, the result will convince you for sure.

Bica blanca de Laza
In addition to its white bica, Laza is a town well known for its Entroido (Carnival), integrating the “magic triangle” together with the towns of Xinzo de Limia and Verín. The traditional mask of Laza are the “peliqueiros”, who tour the town during the days of the Entroido, ringing their bells and encouraging people to participate in the party. On Entroido Sunday, after mass, the “peliqueiros” make their races through the town square while proceeding to the traditional distribution of bica from an old car, specially decked out for the occasion. An impressive super buttery cake / cake that will not leave you indifferent.

Bica mantecada de Trives There
is so much love that we have for these Ourense lands that it makes us want to eat it at any time of the day: at breakfast, as a main dessert or at the table accompanied by a good liqueur-coffee, at the time of snack and even at night accompanied by a rich glass of milk. We can accompany it with a homemade strawberry or raspberry jam.

We could include the French toast, the cottage cheese with honey, a little cheese with quince and many more sweets, but perhaps, these are more from Doña Cuaresma.

It is clear that Carnival is not a suitable date for diets, with the cold what you want is to put calories into the body.

I hope you like all these larpeiradas and serve as a guide if you decide to prepare any of them between disguise and disguise.