The best chucho in the world is made in Santa Coloma de Farners (and it doesn't have butter)
Trias pastry shop has won the world competition, which has reached its fifth edition.
The best chucho of the year once again comes from the Girona region, specifically from the Trias bakery in Santa Coloma de Farners, which began making it after several trials in May 2024. As soon as he learned of the award, pastry chef Quim Trias expressed his joy. Trias belongs to the fourth generation of the bakery, well-known in the town, which was opened by his great-grandfather, Joaquim Trias, in 1908, on Carrer del Centre. But today the best chuche competition didn't take place in Santa Coloma de Farners, but in the Rosaleda del Parque de la Devesa, in Girona, where it began in 2018, exactly one hundred years since pastry chef Emili Puig invented the fried and sugary sweet. The 2018 competition (won by the Padrés bakery in Banyoles) was followed by the 2020 competition (Pa Artesà del Vallès), then the 2022 competition (Juhé in l'Escala), and since 2024 (Triunfo bakery in Barcelona) it has been held every year.
"Our chucho is made with pork fat, because that's how we also make our croissants," explains Trias. In fact, the dough for a chucho is the same as a croissant, except that in the final stages of preparation there are differences: pastry cream is added, it is rolled like a cannelloni, and fried. Finally, sugar is sprinkled on top. Quim Trias explained the preparation process, which is neither simple nor quick because it requires several fermentation stages, each lasting different amounts of time. The last, once they've added the pastry cream and rolled it, takes an hour and a half. "We fry it with extra virgin olive oil, and we'd like to use Catalan oil because until now we've used a different kind," explains Trias, who adds that the price of their chuchos in the bakery to date is €1.90. Each chucho measures approximately 100 grams, but for the competition they had to reduce the size because the rules required them to make between 65 and 85 grams.
Xuixo from Barcelona, awarded in 2024
In five editions, the world dog competition, invented by journalist Salvador Garcia-Arbós, has achieved great success in Catalonia. When pastry chef Gisela Bellart last year (Barcelona, 1985) won the award and recalls that the queues at the Triomf bakery stretched down Rambla del Poblenou. "We went out to the queue to ask each person how many chuchos they would like and then we added and subtracted the number we had made to tell them whether or not we would have any when it was their turn," says the pastry chef. The fact is that the day after the award, they began making 800 chuchos daily. And they continued like this for months. Now, a year later, they make 250 during the week, and double that on the weekend. And they've also added a new feature: the chocolate chucho. They've been making it since November and it's made with a piece of solid chocolate from Madagascar.
To continue, Bellart explains, "traditional Catalan pastries are very much alive, and we're fighting to keep it that way." He says this because the fact that a pastry shop in Barcelona won the competition for a sweet created in Girona caused him to receive all kinds of opinions, among them one that claimed that it was impossible for master artisans from Barcelona to participate. "At a time when we are invaded by cookies, carrot cakes, cheesecakes and I don't know how many more sweets from the North American tradition, we have to close ranks all together so that our desserts can be maintained, made and sold," says Bellart, who confesses his sadness at the fact that they have stressed so much that he was from Barcelona and not Girona despite having won the competition. could host the prize, like the Alianza del Poble Nou," says Bellart. For its part, the prize organizers confirm that this was the case because Barcelona City Council has not made it easy for them to hold the competition. On the contrary, Girona City Council and also the Provincial Council made it easy.
from Tarragona, and the rest, from Girona. This year the Triunfo pastry shop in Barcelona has sold the chucho at the same price as before winning the prize, 2.50 euros.
