Mona de Pascua recipe: Valencian Easter bread

The mona de Pascua is one of those bakes made to share and to give. The one on this page comes from Alicante Turismo: a tender dough, scented with orange and orange blossom water, with a boiled, dyed egg left on show in the middle of the piece. These quantities make two monas and, according to the source, serve about eight people. Alicante Turismo gives about 75 minutes, but the recipe also needs a starter made the night before and two rises with no fixed time, until the dough doubles: it is a recipe for an unhurried day, not a quick afternoon job. The quantities come in three groups, the starter, the dough and the decoration, so they do not get mixed up.

A starter made the day before

What sets this recipe apart is the starter. The night before, strong flour, water and fresh baker’s yeast are mixed and left in the fridge. The next day it is mixed with the rest of the flour, more yeast and the eggs. It is not sourdough: it is a short, overnight starter made with fresh baker’s yeast. Following traditional practice, this recipe uses fresh pressed baker’s yeast, keeping the original quantities: 12 g for the starter and 12 g for the dough.

As a guide, use approximately one third of the weight in dried baker’s yeast: about 4 g for the starter and 4 g for the dough.

The dough has more in it than it seems: olive oil, honey, grated orange zest and orange blossom water, as well as the sugar and salt. It is kneaded until it is elastic and stops sticking, and then left to rise until it doubles. Do not be in a hurry over that part.

The egg: boiled, dyed and in its hollow

The eggs are boiled for 10 minutes and moved to a glass of water with a few drops of vinegar and food colouring, where they take on the colour. Then each one is rested in a hollow made in the ball of dough, and from a piece of dough you have set aside you roll thin strips that cross over the egg. They are then brushed with egg white and the mona rises a second time, covered and away from draughts, until it doubles.

In Alicante the mona is usually elongated, though round ones exist too, and figures such as lizards are made with the egg in the mouth. And the egg, according to the Alicante Turismo page itself, is cracked on your companion’s forehead when they least expect it.

Oven and finish

Bake at 180 °C for 25 minutes. Before it goes in, the mona is brushed again and sprinkled with sugar mixed with a few drops of orange blossom water, which is the finish the source asks for.

When it is eaten, and with whom

Here the tradition is twofold. On Easter Sunday, the godfather gives the mona to his godchild after Mass. For the outing to eat it, the sources do not agree on the day. Valencia Bonita speaks of the Monday: two or three families or a group of friends meeting somewhere to eat it and, where it applies, a paella or a torrà (a barbecue) is never missing. The dates and the public holiday, year by year, are on the Easter Monday page. Alicante Turismo places the outdoor merienda on Easter Sunday itself and recalls the custom of going to eat the mona on the threshing floor or in the countryside, with kites, skipping and the song “La Tarara”. In the city of Alicante, according to the same source, many people meet in the Tossal park, at the foot of San Fernando Castle.

If you are after other fiesta sweets, in the recipe collection you have the pumpkin fritters of Fallas, and the coca amb tonyina of the Hogueras, which is savoury but just as tied to its day. Among the sponge cakes, the coca de llanda, the Valencian tray-baked sponge; and for dipping in horchata, the fartons.

For a crowd

The page works out quantities for the number of monas you want, but when there are lots of mouths to feed it is worth thinking about the table as a whole: something sweet, rice and drinks. If there are lots of you, we cook for groups and local fiestas: you will find it under local fiestas.