It used to be really hard to find gluten free food anywhere, especially baked goods. And I have come to realize that I'm a bread-aholic...
Good sourdough and sweet baked treats are the way to my heart. Lucky for me, the array of gluten-free bakeries around Barcelona is amazing. It's so fun to just stumble across one as John and I are wandering around the city. Here's a list of my favorites. I'm sure I'm missing some - I can't wait to keep finding them and trying their tasty wares!
My local favorite is
chök - about two and a half blocks from our apartment. I've only allowed myself to go there once a month because everything is SO GOOD. They make cinnamon rolls, cookies, mini-cakes, cheesecakes, cookies, brownies, and what they call "rookies" -- a rotating selection of cookie or brownie batter poured over the center of a cinnamon roll and baked. It's as delicious as it sounds! There's a chocolate brownie one
(see pic -->), a caramel pecan one, a nutella one, and a pistachio one, and ... well, you get the idea. I always get a rookie and a cinnamon roll with baked apple chunks on top, and John gets a brownie (or something else - this week he got a pistachio cheesecake!). I can never eat the whole thing at once, so it gives me several days of sweet goodies.
The other day we found a new bakery in the other direction from our place, called Panarres. [I also finally got to go into the local yarn shop! Almost as delicious as pastries...] They had beautiful (savory) breads of all types - I bought a quinoa roll and an oatmeal roll, and a magdalena to share with John. The photo on their website doesn't convey the lovely fresh-baked aroma of the place. Yummmm.
One Sunday when we were just trying to get out of the house, John wanted to see if a fancy paper store was open (sadly no), but since we were almost there, we checked out Hanai Vegana in the Born neighborhood. Another amazing pastry place with too many wonderful choices. I wanted an alfajor (two cookies with dulce de leche in between, coated in chocolate), and we also got some other sweets. Wish I'd taken a picture! We stood in front of the shop and ate the alfajor right away, then carried the box with us until we got home.
The day I trekked to the kosher store for Passover stuff, I happened across
Jansana on the way home. There was a long line forming out the door -- it was 1:30pm and they were closing at 2! Hard to tell what everything is in the window from this pic, but there were all kinds of donuts, pastries, muffins, cakes, and also loaves of bread inside. I bought some bunyols (little sugar-covered donuts), a chocolate croissant, and their version of a "pretzel" -- twisted sweet dough with sliced almonds on top. I shared the little donuts with John, and at least one bite of the others. Another trip that gave me multiple days worth of snacks.
In January, we found
La Browneria in Eixample. A whole case full of different flavors of brownie - we bought salted peanut, cappuccino, and a plain one, and we carried those brownies around with us the rest
of the day so we could eat them after dinner. A little crumbly, but absolutely delicious. When I went up to a friend's place for book club a few weeks ago, I realized that she lives
a block from the brownie shop, so I went and grabbed us a snack. So selfless of me!
(She was nice and let me take home the leftovers for John.) A few weeks ago, on our May Day Friday off, we found The Holy Cookie (see top pic). It isn't a gluten-free bakery, but they have a "less-gluten" cookie -- they make sure to warn you that it isn't made in a separate facility, so there's cross-contamination. That's not enough to scare me away! So I had their Angel gluten-sensitive cookie, and John had the Devil cookie. They were HUGE. We were so excited to eat them after dinner, we didn't take pictures! And I really should've cut it in half, but it was just too delicious to stop. Om nom nom...
I haven't been quite as studious at keeping track of our favorite ice cream/gelato places... but summer is coming, so it's about time to start!
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