Tag: cakes

Anna Olah Nagy – confectioner

Cakes called Hájas tészta

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Attila asked me what kind of small-scale producers I would like to visit in his area, then I mentioned a bakery or a confectionery. After some phone calls, he had tracked down the confectionery of Mrs Anna Olah Nagy.

Before, the locals came to her with ingredients and asked her to make a cake, but often it wasn’t enough and she had to add some. Moreover, they didn’t pay since they had brought the ingredients, but she got tired of it. One day she set up a sign on the gate that cakes were for sale and people started buying them.

She learnt baking from her mother and grandmother, who still helps a lot even though she’s 92 years old.

When we visited her, she was making a cake with pig’s fat called Hájas tészta. The finished cake resembles Danish pastry with its airy consistency.

Inside a cakes called Hájas tészta

She flattened the dough with a rolling pin and hit it with the same utensil.

Rolling the dough

Hitting the dough with a rolling pin

Next, she put fat on the dough and spread it out over the whole surface.

Putting pig’s fat on the dough

She folded the dough in a certain way, folding it on the long sides, then on the short ones until she had made a block of dough.

Folding the dough

Finally, she put the fat on top of the dough and put it in a plastic bag, letting it rest for about 20 minutes.

She would do the same three times and it takes 4-5 hours to make this cake.

Fortunately, she was making two of this cake on the same day so we didn’t have to wait long before she did the same procedure again. Then, small bumps appeared on the surface and she told my guide that it was a sign of quality.

There should be two weddings in the weekend and 60 kg of cakes was required for each wedding.

This is her only job and she’s working at home.

When she makes cakes for weddings, etc. she starts on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and finishes on time on Friday or Saturday.

She showed us a cake with marzipan flowers. In fact, she makes marzipan and shapes it into flowers.

A finished cake

She also makes cookies and cakes without orders and advertises them on her facebook page and people are coming to her confectionery to buy them. There is also a small shop with products from small-scale producers in this area and it’s possible to buy her products there.

She has two children, one son in Switzerland and a daughter in high school. She helps her mother in summer holidays.

Her family has a guesthouse in the mountains and they also have some pigs, which they slaughter for meat for themselves and their guests. They also take the fat, which is located near the stomach of the pig, and use it for making Hájas tészta.

The house is located near the main road passing through the village of Ghimes-Fáget near the Antal guesthouse.

Before we left, she generously gave us a lot of the cakes she had been making earlier in the day.

02/10/2019
Bizkarra bakery and confectionery

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Having entered the Bizkarra bakery, which is housed in a nondescript brick building, I first thought I had arrived at a factory and that we had come to the wrong place. Instead, my first impression was, if not wrong, very far from the truth. This bakery was founded in 1957 by Esteban Bizkarra and we were shown around the bakery by Eduardo Bizkarra, one of his grandsons. At first sight, it seemed like the workers were just operating machines, but after some time, which lasted up to 4(!) hours, I could see first-hand that the machines did all the heavy and repetitive work, while the workers, who were trained bakers, were doing manual work occasionally, like shaping each bread manually by deft hands. Since demand for breads from this bakery is very high, the breads have to be made fast.

The breads made at this bakery are either sourdough breads, where a starter is used to start fermentation or yeast, which is expected to ferment for 16 hours, is used. The philosophy of this company is to not rush thing and let nature take its time. This has the added advantage that the workers can prepare dough in the afternoon and let it ferment overnight.

Parts of the flour, which is used at this company, has been certified and the cereals have been grown in Álava, located in the south of the Basque Country, where they have been turned into flour.

Sourdough starters contain yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. While the yeasts expand bread by leaving air pockets after baking, the lactic acid bacteria improve taste, sight, smell and touch of bread as well as their shelf life, nutritional value and wholesomeness. A sourdough starter contains thousands of different microorganisms, which will leaven bread slowly.

The sourdough starter has to be renewed regularly and each time it is used for making bread, a part of it is kept for the next bread-making. The microorganisms in the sourdough starter are kept alive by giving them nutrients like flour for food and water for drinking. It is also necessary to stir it such that the microorganisms can breathe.

Actually, the Bizkarra company consists of both a bakery and a confectionery and Eduardo willingly showed us both, sometimes showing us some type of cake being made in the confectionery before going back to the bakery where we could, e.g. watch freshly shaped pieces of dough enter an oven by means of a machine or using the same machine to take them out again, creating a pleasant fragrance. He also picked small pieces of freshly made dough and pulled it almost apart, showing us some of its characteristics. Likewise, he described the characteristics of a freshly made bread on which the bakers had made a pattern in the dough before baking by means of a knife. Being an expert, he could perceive imperfections, which would have been more or less invisible to anyone else.

Eduardo likes to research old recipes as well as bakery history and ancient cereals always looking for new ways to improve his company.

In the confectionery, lots of different types of sweets were being made. We were shown sweets typical of the province of Bizkaia, like «pastel de Arroz» , «bollo de mantequilla» «carolina» and «pastel vasco» were made manually, but as usual, with the help of machines. A machine, which seems to be ubiquitous in confectioneries are rollers, which flatten the dough. First, the confectioner makes the dough relatively flat by means of a rolling pin, then the dough is put in the roller where it is compressed several times until it is as thin as required.

One of the cakes called «pastel vasco», meaning Basque cake, was made by pressing a stencil on the flat dough, making lots of equal pieces. Then, each piece was covered by filling by means of a pastry bag, then another piece of dough was put on top. Finally, an elaborate pattern called «Lauburu» was drawn on top of each piece before baking them. Later, fragrant and pleasant-looking cakes were taken out of the oven. The «lauburu» is an old symbol of the Basque Country and the unity of the Basque people.

We could also watch various other types of sweets being made where ingredients like flour, sugar, butter, milk and eggs were mixed together and turned into delicious miracles. For instance, one of the confectioners, having made a filling, applied it to small containers of pastry dough casing, looking like a filled pie. After having leavened and baked them, they were left for cooling, then a confectioner would apply another type of filling on top of the filled pie, forming a sort of spiral on top of it. Finally, it was dipped in chocolate liquor.

Lots of other delicious and fragrant sweets were made, almost drowning our senses in good feelings.

To finish, Eduardo has also teamed up with a cattle farmer, Sandra Lejarza, who sells high quality veal burgers, in order to create a combined product, consisting of four hamburgers with meat from her own cattle and four sourdough breads slowly fermented and not fully baked. In fact, the bread should be baked just before it is eaten.

Later, the same day, we would go to visit Sandra Lejarza who would cook a meal for us and Eduardo would bring some of his delicious breads and cakes.

07/06/2016
Tóth Katalin – confectioner

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Katalin Tóth works at home as a confectioner, a work she does out of passion since the pay is low and she has to work long hours. Alternatively, she could work for someone else at an even lower salary. In fact, Ms. Tóth is part of a huge cottage industry of people who create their own jobs in a country with low wages and high unemployment. She receives orders for cakes and sweets for birthdays, weddings, religious feasts, etc.

She works alone in a tiny kitchen where she’s using her grandmother’s recipes which she knows by heart and she doesn’t need to measure or weigh the ingredients. Upon our arrival, she had already made various cakes which were freely available, and it was only the thought of gaining weight because of eating too much sweet stuff which made me limit myself.

She had already prepared and baked the dough, which would form the base of the cake she was preparing during our visit. She separated yolk and egg white deftly, mixing the yolk with vegetable oil and stirring the mixture. Having finished stirring, she poured the mixture over the base of the cake. Then, she mixed the egg white with flour and chocolate and used a mix-master to make the mixture uniform. Afterwards, she applied this mixture to another piece of dough which had already been baked. Finally, she would bake both of the cakes in a gas-fired oven. Since we had more visits to do, we didn’t wait for the cakes to be ready.

04/06/2015
Pula confectionery

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In the old town centre of Pula, everyone is advised to visit the Pula confectionery in 147, via Nora in order to enjoy the sight, fragrance and taste of the typical Sardinian sweets prepared by the owner Caterina and her assistant Stefania.

Having entered the shop, it’s possible to let the eyes wander over a large variety of local sweets like spadulas, papassinos, croccantini with apples, almonds and nuts, sebadas and various combinations with dried fruits, honey and so on, while pasta like ravioli with various fillings, noodles, pasta spirals and fregola are placed in another counter.

Although it would have been tempting to buy one of each of the sweets, instead we enter the confectionery adjacent to the shop where all their products are made.

Inside, we are met by Caterina, who in the course of our short visit, seems to be a strong, energetic, determined and capable woman, while also being very sympathetic and hospitable.

While she’s working, she tells us she’s been fond of making sweets since she was only 6-7 years old when she learnt from her mother and grandmother. She loved learning new ways of making all sorts of candies and inventing new ones.

While her sisters bought ice cream when they had received their weekly pocket money, she preferred to buy new ingredients, which she would use to make other sweets. She was never more happy than when she could return home with the required ingredients and doing this creative activity in her spare time.

How she enjoyed herself! She kneaded and manipulated the dough, mixed it with various ingredients in order to make a particular kind of sweet, in the end shaping the dough as she wanted before cooking it in an oven.

Growing up, she studied, got married, started working and got children. In 2000, she was working as an employee, but decided to give her notice in order to invest all her savings and energy into making premises ready for both having a confectionery and an adjacent shop for selling her products. After lots of work and time, Caterina could realise her childhood dream.

15 years later, it’s obvious that she has succeeded and it was the right choice for her, while we feel fortunate to be present watching her daily fulfillment of her dream.

When we enter, she’s inspecting a bucket full of ricotta cheese, holding it in her hands, observing the ricotta closely, sensing the smell and tasting a sample in order to verify if it’s fresh because it easily gets spoiled. While she rejects one bucket of ricotta, she accepts another one and pours the contents into a mixer where it is combined with other ingredients like orange peel, saffron, sugar, flour and eggs in order to form the filling of the sweets.

After having mixed all the ingredients thoroughly, the resulting mousse has to rest at least 12 hours, but Caterina had prepared the required amount of mousse the day before such that she could proceed immediately with making a typical pastry called pardula, which is also called formagella and casadina depending on the region where it’s being made. However, while the mousse is allowed to mature for some more time, she starts preparing the dough, which will contain the filling.

First, she introduces a piece of flat dough into a roller, letting the dough pass back and forth. Being helped by Stefania, the dough gets thinner and longer until it has a thickness of, say, one millimetre, a length of about 4 metres and a width of, say, 40 centimetres. They lift the dough together and put it gently on a workbench. The dough, which consists of flour, water and salt, is also used for making ravioli and sebadas where dough with the smallest thickness is used for making pardulas followed by ravioli and finally sebadas.

Caterina works diligently all the time, dividing the dough longitudinally by using a roller cutter consisting of 4 parallel wheels, an idea which has been conceived by her and made by her husband. Then, she uses another roller cutter to divide the four resulting stripes perpendicularly such that they are divided into equally sized rectangles. Stefania uses a pastry bag to apply the same amount of filling to each rectangle, while Caterina dexterously folds the dough around the filling. Before, we have watched confectioners making stellar shapes of the dough around the filling, but she forms a cylindrical shape for about 180 degrees, while she makes a complex shape of the rest. It seems easy because she works so ably, but only years of experience could allow someone to shape the dough so effortlessly.

Some time later, small fragrant miracles emerge from the oven. The dough has become golden and crisp, while the filling looks delicious, pleasant aromas fill the workshop and our noses and the taste? Caterina invites us to have a taste, a delicious taste indeed, resulting from the hands of a skilled artisan.

25/10/2014
Mario Demurtas – confectioner

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We went to the confectionery of Mario at Piazza Sant’Antioco in Mogoro. Upon entering the shop, we were struck by the sight of so many tempting sweets and the intoxicating fragrance which permeated all the confectionery. After having presented ourselves, Mario showed us his workshop and after a brief explanation, started to prepare pastries called formaggellas and explaining how he made them at the same time.

A formagella is a typical Sardinian pastry made at Easter, but now it’s produced all year, whose recipe varies from region to region and the same applies to all other Sardinian sweets. In other words, every region of Sardinia has its own tradition leading to that it’s often possible to find various versions of the same type of sweets, but with different names. For example, formaggellas are also called pardulas and casadinas.

The stuffing of formaggellas may be based on grated, fresh cheese or as Mario was doing: using ricotta derived from sheep’s milk, salt (for bringing out the flavours), grated orange and lemon peel, saffron and yolk which causes the characteristic golden colour after cooking, flour and a little yeast, in order to soften the stuffing. After having mixed the ingredients, the stuffing needs to rest in order to avoid cracks appearing in the stuffing during cooking, and in order to let the ingredients become united at the same time creating a unique and unmistakable taste of formaggellas. Mixing plain white flour, lard, a little salt and lukewarm water, Mario had prepared the dough in advance laminating it in a dough roller and letting it rest on a workbench. Using a circular stencil, he made small circular “islands” in the dough, then he poured the stuffing onto each “island” using a piping bag. He folded the dough around the stuffing and pinched the dough such that it got the stellar shape of a formaggella. Finally, he put the formaggelas on a baking tray and cooked them at 180°C for 20 minutes. Always being patient and helpful, Mario also showed us how he made other types of sweets and a braided bread.

Having visited several confectioneries, I have noticed that confectioners are using machines like kneaders and dough rollers in order to avoid tiring and repetitive work. Instead, they are working their products manually in those cases where manual dexterity is required, e.g. making adornments.

During our visit, I realised that in order to become a good confectioner, requires years of experience and it’s not just “know how to make sweets”, but experiment and improvise, know the characteristics of the ingredients and how they interact in order to create sweets with a unique taste. Skills which Mario clearly have, seeing how he worked in his workshop and looking at his creations on his facebook page, it’s easy to recognise a master confectioner.

10/10/2013
Confectionery of Teresa Faedda
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Cakes constitute an important part of the Sardinian culture because their preparation, from ancient times was connected like today to particular anniversaries. In fact, they were eaten above all at public holidays, but also at weddings, birthday parties, etc.

The bakery of the Faedda family dates back 35 years, being placed in the cellar of the house where they live in the village of Masullas. Having descended a gentle slope, we arrived at the entrance of their combined bakery and shop from which a delicious fragrance could be sensed. In fact, a counter, containing their finished products, was located just inside the entrance, while the bakery, consisting of various machines and workbenches, was located behind the counter.

The cakes are made by Teresa Faedda and her husband who founded their confectionery in 1977 a shortly after their wedding. The family of her husband made bread and she enjoyed making cakes, making it natural to start this company. Little by little, they extended their business and bought some machines, e.g. a machine for compressing the dough into a thin layer, a machine for mixing flour, water, yeast, but also butter, eggs, almonds and sugar in order to making and kneading dough and another machine for roasting the almonds.

Both of them emphasised that that it isn’t enough to go to a course in order to learn how to make cakes, instead only practical experience counts. They have chosen a work of sacrifice where they start work at 5 in the morning and often finish late in the evening. In fact, we were told that in a certain sense you have to give up liberty and do hard work, but at the same time they feel a lot of satisfaction.

Teresa told us that she has gained so much experience that she selects the amount of each ingredient without weighing them. Besides, both of them make their cakes manually, only using local ingredients and especially adding no fragrances or colourings. In short, they are determined that their products should be artisanal.

Their products are in high demand and are sold to restaurants, but since they have to be fresh, they are only sold in Sardinia.

Their products include:
- oss’ e mortu
- gueffus (with myrtle, with lemon juice, or simply with almonds)
- formaggelle
- pane saba
- ciambelline
- gattou
- piricchittus (campidanesi)
- pabassinos
- piricchittus de bentu
- amaretti sardi
- bianchini
- capigliette
- torrone
Like all the Sardinian people we have visited, Teresa Faedda and her husband willingly set aside time to talk about their work.
04/10/2012