Professional pastry chefs are hard at work making nougat (locally known as Turron) and sweets that customers in Majorca love to eat, especially at Christmas, when they buy it by the truckload.
Juan and Margalida, from the Ramis Pastry Shop in Llucmajor are following in the steps of their father, Pedro Ramis, who instilled in them a love and affection for the pastry profession.
Llucmajor nougat
They make a special Llucmajor Nougat which was created by their father before he died. It includes an almond praline and waffle in a white chocolate case and takes a long time to prepare because it's made in several layers with burnt sugar on the inside and outside.
They also make a marzipan based nougat with coconut, fruits, pistachios and hazelnuts as well as the chocolate ones with hazelnuts, almonds and rocher.
"For us the choice of almonds is very important and we use specially chosen whole ones from Vilafranca de Bonany near Petra in Majorca, which make a delicious nougat that consumers like very much and there’s a lot of demand for it,” said Margalida Ramis.
In Forn Fondo in Palma, brothers Pau and Neus Llull are making their novel and very original, chocolate nougat such as, kikos, which contains roasted corn, praline and chocolate.
“Our Centenario has a Peta Zeta base with praline and chocolate and this year we’ve added a new one made with white truffle, mango puree, passion fruit and crispy chocolate. There's also one with caramelised hazelnut, hazelnut praline and gianduia and the Torró fluix, Jijona type, which won the Balears nougat contest in 2017 has cream nuts and raisins, amongst other things,” said the brothers.
The handmade Christmas specials made by Pau and Neus Llull fly off the shelves in Majorca, especially the aniseed and chocolate ones and the poverones which cost 22 euros kilo.