La Castanyada The typical festival of Catalonia

What is “La Castanyada”? The Castanyada is a typical festival in Catalonia, and it is celebrated at the end of October. It's represented with the castanyera. The castanyera is an old woman that she is dressed with older clothes and very warm, with a scarf in the head and selling chestnuts. In this day, it eat chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets. And the tipical drink of this day is moscatel, an alcoholic drink.

Chestnuts Chestnuts are a typical food of Castanyada. For the Castanyada, we eat chestnuts hot that we make it to fire.

Sweet potatoes Sweet potatoes also are a typical food of this day. If no like it you, you can make a cake of sweet potatoes.

Panellets Other dessert typical in Catalonia that calls “panellets”. The “panellets” are making with potatoes, almonds, sugar, grated coconut and pine kernels. There are a lot of variety of panellets: -Pine nut, almond, coconut, chocolate, coffee, Baileys, orange, cherry, strawberry,…

Panellets Recipe Ingredients: - 150g potatoes - 3 1/2 cups ground almonds - 2 1/2 cups white sugar - 1 tablespoon lemon zest - 3/4 cup pine nuts - 2 egg yolks, beaten - 2 egg whites, beaten

How to make it: 1. Place the potatoes in a small saucepan; cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are tender; drain. Mash the potatoes with a fork. Allow to cool. 2. Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Lightly butter a baking sheet.

3. Combine the cooled potatoes and almonds. Slowly add the sugar while stirring with a wooden spoon. Stir in the lemon zest; continue mixing with your hands. Form the dough into balls. Roll the balls in the pine nuts; brush with egg yolk. Brush each cookie with egg white. Arrange cookies on the prepared baking sheet. 4. Bake in preheated oven until lightly golden, 10 to 12 minutes.