They're here, panellets! Many bakeries started making them in September, and now that the holidays are approaching, having the best recipe at hand to make them at home is ideal. For this reason, pastry chef Èric Ortuño, from L'Atelier Barcelona, ​​explains how to prepare a unique dough to which he adds other ingredients to make panellets with pine nuts, chocolate, or whatever your imagination comes up with. They'll all be delicious. Also, a very important tip: the chef suggests reducing the amount of sugar relative to the almond flour so the result isn't too sweet. In traditional recipes, the amount of sugar and almond flour has always been the same, but the master pastry chef at L'Atelier suggests we make this change.

I interviewed pastry chef Èric Ortuño (Lavelhanet, France, 1972) in his bakery, L'Atelier Barcelona (Viladomat Street), hours before the start of the afternoon classes he teaches for students who want to dedicate themselves to the trade. Ortuño has been teaching for so many years that he has students spread across the best bakeries in the country, who always speak of him as the master, with all due respect. The last thing he told me about his mastery in the classes was: Joe Bruises, winner of the best chocolate monkeyThese days Ortuño and Ximena Pastor, partners and co-owners of L'Atelier, are preparing a pop-up with the chocolatier Lluc Crusellas, another student. On May 16 and 17, the world's finest chocolatier will be selling exclusive chocolates, made for L'Atelier, and chocolate ice cream, which will be placed on the cakes created by Ortuño, as well as on the cone-shaped croissants.

The pastry chef Èric Ortuño, trained in the best schools and pastry shops in France, and current pastry chef at L'Atelier Barcelona, suggests preparing a simple sponge cake, which is completed with a chocolate figure, which Ortuño calls a nest, and which is one of the great discoveries to make at home during any time of the year.

Barcelona is in love with its croissants. The Best Croissant competition, organised by the Barcelona Pastry Guild, has probably helped, but so has the skill of master pastry chefs who have opened new establishments and have put effort and ingenuity into making croissants. In addition, Barcelona has shown that not everything has been invented when it comes to making a croissant, so new shapes (conical, like those proposed by L'Atelier Barcelona) and also innovative fillings have raised the sweet to very high levels of excellence. So, what is Paris doing at the moment with its icon of pastry? Is the quality of its croissants above that of Barcelona?