If there is no Christmas without Panettone, there is no Easter without Mona de Pascua: the typical spanish Easter cake!
Spanish Easter is completely different from the Italian one I have always known: it is colourful, very colourful, perhaps sometimes too much colourful, it is also a bit kitsch for someone! It is made up of little eggs, colored feathers, chicks and figures representing characters from cartoons, comics, books, of films, etc.
The typical chocolate Easter egg is used here too, but it’s seen as a real art work: the Mona de Pascua, precisely! Chocolate sculptures representing animals, forest houses, fairy-tale castles are built around the egg or in place of it , princess carriages, unicorns, etc.. So… In other words: you just have to think about one thing and you’ll see that you’ll certainly find it in one pastry shop! 😀
And in all this, the surprise is not inside as I’ve always been accustomed: it is placed next to the sculpture if it is a chocolate mona or above it if it is a mona cake. These two types of Easter mona are the modern and most popular ones today, but once upon a time (and according to what history tells) the mona was a crown-shaped dessert with hard-boiled eggs on the surface (wikipedia source).
Since we live in Barcelona, we’ve joined the spanish tradition of the Mona and in the last years we’ve made it at home! I have to say that ee don’t specially like sponge cake-based desserts (as tradition dictates), therefore each year we’ve chose a different base!
Our Monas de Pascua through the years
Here you can find all the links to our previous versions of Monas de Pascua:
MONA DE PASCUA WITH HAZELNUTS: a hazelnut and honey cake, eggs free, embellished with a delicious dark chocolate cream and decorated with many eggs. RECIPE HERE (italian) and SPANISH VERSION
MONA DE PACUA WITH CARROTS: a carrot and almond cake, butter free, moist, very soft and with an inebriating scent! It is completed by a milk chocolate icing, some almonds and lots of eggs. RECIPE HERE (italian) and SPANISH VERSION
MONA DE PASCUA WITH LEMON: light almond and lemon base, butter free (adaptation of Sicilian orange bread), completed with a chocolate and lemon icing and decorated with dark egg and little eggs. RECIPE HERE (italian) and SPANISH VERSION
Our present Mona de Pascua
Today i’m glad to present our latest creation: an easy and super delicious chocolate Mona de Pascua: the base of the dessert is an egg-free cake prepared with wholemeal flour, almonds and cocoa.
This year for the first time I was tempted and I decided to create also a soft and delicious Nutella filling. To finish, I didn’t miss out on my already tested light chocolate icing and, obviously, endless eggs and feathers! 🙂
In other words an “all chocolate” version! You know that here chocolate is a bit like the password that opens all the doors of gluttony… 😀
The recipe is very easy and quick: the base can be prepared in 2 minutes, the filling in 5 and the icing in just 1 minute! You will also dirty very few tools: two bowls, a fork, electric whisks, a spatula and a plate! Sounds perfect to me, right? If you have children running around the house, prepare it together with them: you will keep them busy and entertained and you will be able to experiment the educational value of cooking!
So if you want to bring a special dessert to your Easter tables, don’t miss our chocolate Mona de Pascua!
A hug,
Elena
CHOCOLATE MONA DE PASCUA
Attrezzature
- springform cake pan of 18 cm
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 85 g unpeeled almonds
- 120 g 100% wholemeal flour
- 20 g bitter cocoa
- 140 g brown sugar
- 8 g vanilla baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- orange zest grated
- 80 g melted butter at room temperature
- 250 ml whole milk at room temperature
For the Nutella filling:
- 100 ml fresh whipping cream cold from the fridge
- 3 tablespoons of Nutella or other cocoa spread
For the chocolate icing:
- 80 g 70% dark chocolate
- 50 ml whole milk
- 1 teaspoon liquid honey
To complete:
- 30 g dark chocolate in flakes
- chocolate eggs
Instructions
- Turn the oven on to 180°C in static mode and, while it reaches temperature, prepare the cake dough: finely chop the almonds to turn them into a sort of raw flour.
- Pour them into a bowl and add: wholemeal flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt and grated orange zest. Mix with a fork.
- Now pour the melted butter and the milk into the bowl: work the dough for 1 minute with an electric whisk to mix everything well and avoid lumps.
- Pour the mixture into a buttered and floured 18 cm springform pan, level it and bake for 40 minutes. Test with a toothpick, take out of the oven and leave to cool. Remove the cake from the mold and let it cool completely on a cake rack.
- In the meantime, prepare the filling: whip the cream, then add the Nutella, working it gently with a spatula with movements from bottom to top. Place in the fridge covering with film.
- Prepare the icing too: chop the chocolate and place it on a plate together with milk and honey and melt in the microwave at 800 w for 1 minute. Mix to combine and getting a smooth and shiny cream. Cover with film and let cool completely.
- Fill and decorate: when the cake is cold, cut it into two discs of equal height and spread the lower one with the Nutella mousse.
- Cover with the top disc and go over the edges with a spatula.
- Spread the chocolate icing on the surface of the cake using a spoon. (See notes at the bottom of the recipe).
- Finally, decorate your Mona de Pascua with chocolate flakes, eggs of different sizes and flavors and, inevitably in perfect Spanish style, lots of colored feathers!
- Your chocolate Mona de Pascua is ready to be enjoyed!
Notes
- I chose to use the icing only to decorate the top of the cake, but if you want you can also cover the edges: the doses are still enought!
- To make the recipe even quicker you can use almond flour instead of ground almonds, but I prefer the latter because they give a more rustic note to the dessert (remaining less fine) which goes perfectly with wholemeal flour.
- You have to store your mona de Pascua in the fridge (due to the cream filling) and should be consumed within 3 days.
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