I can’t say that the most typical sweets in Saragossa are today rabidly topical. The guirlache, a classic caramel and almond nougat, goes unnoticed among the mountains of Jijona nougat that foreigners buy by the kilo in the shops that grow like mushrooms around the historic centers of our cities.
And what to say about the fruits of Aragon: a sweet that takes us back to the 60s of the last century, with as bad a reputation as the candied melon of the roscón de reyes. We don’t even talk about the cobblestones anymore.
But there was a time when these once-refined and elegant sweets were a symbol of modernity. A time to which we can still travel if we walk 500 meters from the Basilica del Pilar to the pastry shop The Syrup Flowerbetter known in Zaragoza, and throughout the world, as the Fantoba pastry shop.
This confectionery, founded in 1856continues to make the guirlache and the fruits of Aragon in the way in which its founder, Antonio Fantoba, began making them in the 19th century. But while the shop, decorated with Egyptian motifs in vogue at the time, is a trip back in time, it is not a business that has been revamped and kept afloat by its second saga of owners: the Molina family.
Sometimes transfers go well
“My father is a painter and sculptor and he bought the bakery to make edible art because he knew that the business was too big for Don Antonio Fantoba’s daughters and that they wanted to close it if they couldn’t transfer it,” he explained to DAP. ivana molina which, for a quarter of a century, has been in charge of the business. “In 1995 my father bought the company with workers, with recipes, with everything, the only thing that changed was his pocket, so that we could understand each other.”
The Molina family had dedicated itself until then to the hostelrywith two of the most emblematic cocktail bars in Zaragoga, The altar boy and the Infant’s Coffee, some of the first places in the city that offered live music. Ivana, who came to work at Fantoba at the age of 20 without having any idea of pastry, trained professionally there.
“First I got into the workshop, to learn with the pastry chef,” he explains. “First I had to understand what the concept of what pastry is, to be able, from now on, with the usual recipes, to innovate. Once you have what the bases are, you can create whatever you want. When I bought all that, I went to the store and saw what I needed”.
When the Molinas acquired the Fantoba business, it was still a well-known pastry shop, but it was in the doldrums. “Fantoba was broke”, assures its current owner. “It cost 20 million pesetas from before every month. Of pure loss. The genre would be fine and everything, but there was a hole there that you die of.
In the 28 years that the Molinas have been running the business, explains Ivana, they have included endless new references: “You can’t stay is in the jack, horse and king. Four types of cakes were made. Only Futas de Aragón were made. They didn’t even make maraschino cherries, when it is also a typical product for us. It was all a bit left. One of the things we did was remove sugars, remove things that were not for sale and try to do things in a different way”.
Preserving the pastry legacy
Now in Fantoba macarons, chocolates and truffles of all kinds of flavors are dispatched, braids of the virgin –a transcript of the famous Almudevar braid–, roscones de reyes and dozens of cakes and pastries. But its star products remain the same as always: the meringue, the fruits of Aragon and the guirlache. Emblems of the house around which the original recipes are preserved, but with an improvement in the presentation and marketing.
When opening one of the cans in which the mythical guirlache barswrapped in its nineteenth-century paper, we find a small lampoon that explains the history of the pastry, “the oldest in Zaragoza”, and notes the secret of its preparation: the Calatorao stone.
Indeed, inside the workshop an enormous stone of black marble from the municipality of Calatorao (Zaragoza), famous for its black limestone: much appreciated as an ornamental rock, but also, according to Ivana, essential for making a good guirlache.
“Once the almond and sugar have been integrated into the fire, the sugar gradually dissolves and the almond is toasted,” explains Molina. “Olive oil is added to the stone and when the almonds are poured with the sugar, a very magical thing happens, the almond begins to float and the sugar drops. That only happens with that stone and that stone only we have. That is why I say that our nougat is unique in the world”.
The elaboration of the ## fruits of Aragón has less mystery, but a lot of work. “We continue making them like 140 years ago,” says Molina. “The first thing we do is select the fruit: the peach, the apricot, the pear, the plum, the orange and the cherries. We confit them with syrup and make a dark chocolate coating. Then we bathe the fruits one by one with a utensil that is like a two tined fork. It is dipped in chocolate, lifted, and allowed to dry.”
Then the fruits are wrapped in Color papers –typical of this sweet– but, unlike what happens with other brands, you don’t know which fruit you’re going to get. “The paper doesn’t match the fruit, it’s a surprise,” explains Molina. “With a fork it is impossible to first make one fruit and then another. It would be the day of the peach or the day of the pear. Not all kinds of fruit would be sold, because the processing is much more pampered.”
“I also have to say that it is impossible to maintain a company with a fork,” jokes Molina. “It is a fork, after all, and processing time is very expensive. It is impossible, unless you elaborate a thousand other things. Sometimes you come to Fantoba and there are no fruits from Aragón. They have all been sold. And that is the exclusivity that Fantoba has, the way of working”.
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