**Girona specialty - custard filled sugar buns**

Hi! I’m writing this during our travel adventure to France and Spain. After flying to Paris and staying for a night, we hopped on the high speed train and headed to Catalonia.

For more details on our trip, check out Steve’s blog too!

We have never visited this part of the world, and I must admit I didn’t quite know what to expect. Not only have we found ancient cathedrals, Roman ruins, the gorgeous aquas and deep blues of the Mediterranean, but plenty of friendly folk ready to help and explain new things. Beautiful flora too!

Our first stop - Girona (about 6.5 hours from Paris by high speed train).

As usual, I/we seek out the local pastries to experience their flavor, texture and uniqueness. In the parts of Europe we’ve enjoyed over the years, we always find the classics like croissants, pain au chocolat, tortes, sablés, choux puffs, turnovers and more. Let’s not forget that the bases of pastry are pretty much the same in many parts of the world. The differences exist in how a particular town/region/country decides to create their own versions.

One of the perks of our lodgings - breakfast included!! I’ll tell you European breakfasts are the best! Tables laden with bread, meats, cheeses, eggs, yogurt, fresh fruit, juices, cereals, granola, an array of pastries and readily available coffee choices the likes of latte, cappuccino, espresso and variations thereof.

**Just one part of the breakfast at Hotel Ultonia in Girona**

We soon learned about the Girona specialty xuixo (shu-sho) - a custard filled laminated pastry that reminded us of one of our favorite treats in Florence years ago - bomboloni. Similar to what some know as a Berliner or Bismarck or the Jewish sufganiyah or sufganiyot, think yeast raised dough, light and airy, quickly fried and sugar coated, filled with custard or jam/jelly.

I fondly recall childhood memories of eating a similar treat from our small west Michigan town’s bakery. Some of our favorites were what we referred to as jelly donuts along with glazed loaves of raisin bread, lemon filled “sticks”, lovely sweet bun type dough in a long rectangle with lemon filling down the center. Although my tastes have changed over the years, leaning away from overly sweet stuff, an occasional reminder of some of these long ago treats isn’t all bad.

We spent time in Girona, Tarragona and Barcelona and found similar treats at our breakfast buffets. After some “healthy” starters such as whole grain bread, egg, cheese, granola and/or yogurt with fruit, I usually treated myself to a trio of petite goodies, varying my choices each time. Of course these had to be accompanied by the requisite cappuccino.

**Girona: raisin swirl, apple cake, chocolate croissant**

Tarragona’s lodgings had an even more extensive spread than Girona’s, offering a revolving number of choices for our three breakfasts there.

As an aside, we did lots of walking this trip which justified a bit of indulgence here and there.

This particular morning I sampled walnut braided pastry, palmier and coconut tarte.

Coconut *tarte*, walnut braid, *palmier*

Another involved a generous slice of apple torte which I found too sweet and opted not to eat the whole thing. A moist slice of marble cake and a simple, plain sweet bun pastry (referred to as ensaïmada) dusted with powder sugar rounded out the trio.

A quick internet search told me that ensaïmada is a light, airy yeasted bun traditionally from Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. It’s made as a typical sweet bun might be with bread flour, water, sugar, egg and yeast but uses pork lard as opposed to butter (which you can substitute if you prefer). It involves a short poolish type preferment, a first bulk rise that can be done in the fridge overnight for flavor enhancement and ease of shaping the following day. Maybe I’ll try it.

So as not to bore you with pastry photos, here are a few images from Tarragona, a beautiful seaside town southwest of Barcelona.

Inside the large indoor market, *Mercat Central*

**Dipping my toes into the mediterranean**

From Tarragona we traveled to Barcelona for the end of our Spanish adventure. We enjoyed a number of sites, some tasty (and not so tasty) food and nothing too unique in the pastry world after Girona and Tarragona. We took advantage of a metro pass which got us on busses as well. A modern, well designed, clean and user friendly system. Gotta love it.

**View of barcelona’s harbor and the Med**

You’ll think this odd perhaps but one of the most satisfying things in Barcelona was doing laundry! We discovered a small laundromat right around the corner from our hotel, all automated, instructions well signed and easy to operate - didn’t even have to put detergent in - it was dispensed automatically. It held three washers, three dryers, well timed and efficient. Total cost 7 euros, total time about 55 minutes.

Sometimes its the day to day stuff that can lift us up on a dreary, rainy day.

Coming up - Bordeaux and Paris tidbits.

Baking with the French Tarte

Baking with the French Tarte

What's new in the French Tarte's kitchen

Baking with the French Tarte

Pastries and more in Catalonia

Baking with the French Tarte