The business graduate who wanted to knead bread at the family bakery and has won a contest for two Sant Joan cakes

GranollersThey say that babies always arrive in the world with a loaf of bread under their arm, and in the case of little Júlia Martorell Calatayud, it will be with two winning cakes: the cream one and the lardons one, created by her father at the El Sagà bakery in Granollers. These are two of the specialties that won in the competition for the best Sant Joan cake, organized by the Bakers' Guild of the Barcelona regions and created by the agency Sr y Sra Cake. The baker Andreu Martorell (Lliçà de Vall, 1988), Júlia's father and also father to Jan (5 years old) and Pol (3 years old), was the first to be surprised to achieve first place in both categories, and even more so in a year when the event organizers assured that there had been more participation than ever: 20% more than in previous editions. So, in total, with each category (traditional, cream, lardons, chocolate, and creative), the jury had to taste three hundred.

Since he won, Andreu assures that orders for coques for Sant Joan have increased. “We have opened a WhatsApp channel with a person dedicated to taking orders. We also accept them through Instagram. In the same shop, they also make them for us,” he says. It's non-stop, even though of all the food-related festivals, Sant Joan is probably the most organized: the coques are sold on June 23rd itself, the eve, and also on the 24th in the morning, but it doesn't extend beyond that.

'Sagà' comes from harvesting wheat

I ask him about the name of the bakery, El Sagà, and Andreu replies that it's a simple idea he came up with for the bakery he opened in Granollers, when he decided to leave the town of Lliçà de Vall, where his brothers, Joan and Josep, are, at the family bakery. “The word Sagà occurred to me from the expression segar el blat (to harvest wheat), and hence the name,” he explains. At the family bakery, named Joan Martorell Roure after his father, Andreu learned to make some preparations: as a child he already made croissants. As an adult, he studied business and administration, and when he finished his studies, without realizing it, he found himself kneading bread. “My two university degrees have always served me, because I handle the numbers, which are basic for running a business, but I saw that I had more work in the bakery than with the numbers,” comments Andreu, adding that there was a phrase that finally convinced him: “If you don't do it, no one else will.” So he started working as a baker in Granollers while his two older brothers stayed at the family bakery. "To create distance and be able to do my own thing, I moved to Granollers. That's when I changed the name of the bakery," he states.

And now we taste the Sant Joan cakes. The cream one, as it should be, is brioche. A dough enriched with butter, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, milk, honey, orange zest, and lemon zest. The cream on top, he prepares it just as his family has always made it; the local pine nuts, specifically from the producer Agustí Nogueras, from the town of Vilalba Sasserra. "I let the dough rest for two days, and in the ingredients, when I say eggs, I use more yolks than whites, because I believe yolks add more creaminess to the brioche dough," says Andreu, adding that honey is the trick to keeping the cake fresh longer. "So that the day after buying it, it's still soft, honey helps. Baker's cakes are artisan preparations, which do not contain any type of preservatives," he says.

The second winning cake was the lardons one, which they prepare just like for Fat Thursday. "We make the puff pastry ourselves, and we put the lardons on top," he explains. However, the touch of El Sagà bakery is that the puff pastry must have many layers, when we bite into it it feels like it breaks, and the lardons on top become caramelized and have a fair balance. "The lardon is the protagonist, but the puff pastry must also be." Both cost twenty-seven euros per kilo.

Winning the competition in double category has meant that at El Sagà bakery, they have received more orders. "First we were very surprised, and then proud of our work and especially of the whole team around us, of our family, our siblings. The merit is everyone's," points out Andreu, who confesses that of all the cakes he makes, the one he likes the most is the cream-filled one. "I didn't enter this one in the competition, but if I have to choose one, I'll go with the cream-filled one," he states. This is precisely the one that should be put in the fridge before and after eating it. On the other hand, the winning one with cream on top does not need refrigeration, because in this case the cream is baked in the oven.