Terrifying panellets, the recipe of Ada Parellada

Autumn is here, and that is synonymous with Catalan traditions. Panellets and sweet potatoes, like this stuffed one. But there are also new foreign traditions that are taking hold. We make it work so we don't stop having panellets, by adding a touch of terror.

Ingredients

• 100 g of ground almonds
• 75 g of sugar
• 1 egg white (we will paint the marzipan with the yolk)
• Dark chocolate
• White chocolate
• Pine nuts
• Strawberry jam
• Eye candy

The recipe step by step:

• In the bowl, we mix the ground almond, the sugar, and the egg white. We knead until everything is well integrated. We make a tube and wrap it with plastic film. We let it rest in the fridge for a couple of hours.
• We put part of the pine nuts covered with water so they don't burn when we bake the mice.
• We cut into pieces and make the shapes.
• For the ghost, we make a kind of little mountains.
• For the mice, we make a kind of elongated small round shape for the snout, and with a toothpick we make the small circles for the eyes. We also make small holes where we will insert the pine nuts that will serve as ears. We insert a soaked pine nut into the snout.
• For the eyes, we make a small circle with a hole in the middle.
• We brush with the egg yolk beaten and diluted with a few drops of water.
• Bake for 5 minutes at 190 ºC.
• When they come out of the oven, we stick some pine nuts into the mice in the holes of the little ears.
• We melt the chocolates in a bain-marie. We reserve a few drops of dark chocolate to make the eyes of the ghosts.

When the panellets are cold:

• We dip the ghosts in melted white chocolate and place them on parchment paper. We wait for the chocolate to cool a little, to set, and we stick the dark chocolate eyes on them. We cool the chocolate in the fridge.
• We dip the mice's bottoms in melted dark chocolate and try to make the tail by dragging the melted chocolate. We place it on parchment paper and cool it in the fridge.
• We fill the eyes with strawberry jam and stick an eye-shaped candy into them.