Flaó

Flaó

Flaons de Morella with a filling of cottage cheese
Type Pastry
Region or state Catalan Countries
Main ingredients Cheese, sugar or honey
Cookbook: Flaó  Media: Flaó

Flaó (plural flaons (Catalan pronunciation: [fɫəˈons]) is a type of pastry made in different locations of the Catalan-speaking regions of Spain, like Morella, Ibiza, Formentera, Minorca and Olot. Traditionally flaons were part of Easter family celebrations in Minorca, but now they are available all-year-round.

The flaons have different shapes, semicircular or circular, and fillings usually based on some type of cheese, varying according to the location. Sweet flaons are usually sweetened with sugar, but traditionally honey was used more often. Historically the first recorded mention of these cakes is from 1252 and they are mentioned as well in Ramon Llull's book Blanquerna, written in 1283. There is a similar pastry in Cyprus known as flaounes.[1]

Variants

Alt Maestrat

In the Alt Maestrat and Ports areas the cake has a semicircular shape and it is filled with a mixture of local cottage cheese (brull) and ground almonds flavored with aiguardent and mistela.[2] The flaons of Morella are the gastronomic icon of the ancient city. An average-sized Morella flaó is about 12 cm long.

Ibiza and Formentera

The flaó d'Eivissa has a circular shape and has a filling of sheep or goat cottage cheese, eggs and sugar, slightly aromatized with peppermint leaves and aniseed.[3] Flaons are usually eaten along with a glass of sweet wine or the local Liqueur frígola, a thyme-based digestive beverage.[4]

Minorca

The flaó de Menorca is a pastry made with tender Maó cheese, wheat flour, olive oil and yeast. Often they include egg and a little lard in the recipe. Good Minorca flaons have to be very puffy in the middle. There are salty and sweet versions of this pastry in Menorca. Some of them have a filling, while in others all the ingredients are mixed together.[5]

Matarranya

The flaonets de Calaceit (Catalan: flaonets = little flaons) are made in Calaceit, a town of La Franja region of Aragon. They are a different kind of pastry despite their name, for instead of cheese these small pastries have a filling based on pumpkin jam and honey.[6] These flaonets were one of the traditional Spanish pastries fondly remembered by painter Salvador Dalí.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Flaounes (Easter Cheese Pastries)
  2. ↑ Flaons de Morella (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Ibiza Food
  4. ↑ Flaó and Greixonera
  5. ↑ Rebosteria Típica - Ajuntament de Maó
  6. ↑ Lluís Gimeno Betí, De lexicografía valenciana, in De las ciencias auxiliares de la Historia a la cultura escrita ed. by Francisco M. Gimeno Blay, 1999, Publicacions de la Universitat de València, ISBN 978-84-370-3931-2
  7. ↑ Jaume Fàbrega, Dalícies: a taula amb Salvador Dalí, Cossetània Edicions ISBN 84-9791-001-X
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