Catalan pastry chefs face the sale of monas de Pascua with the expectation of equaling or even exceeding last year's figures, when pre-pandemic records were already recovered. The Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona plans to sell more than 700,000 artisan monkeys throughout Catalonia and ensures that prices have risen "very little" due to the impact of inflation. In fact, the traditional chocolate ones cost the same as a year ago, while the sponge cakes have become 5% more expensive because flour, eggs and sugar have skyrocketed in recent months.
The president of the Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona, Antoni Bellart, assures that the prospects are good, also favored by the dates on which Easter falls. "It's at the beginning of the month and that's always better because people have received money and there's more joy," he says. "The weather is good and that also influences celebrating Easter better," he adds.
Among the chocolate monkeys, this year the most requested are those of Barça, Disney, Harry Potter, superheroes or video games like Fortnite. Beyond the media characters, the mona Mia stands out, which has been made by the Gremi de Pastisseria in collaboration with the University of Barcelona. She is a chocolate figure that represents a girl explorer who studies minerals and whose objective is to promote the scientific vocation among children.
The confectioners assure that the traditional cakes with a sponge, butter and chocolate base and adorned with chocolate figures, candied fruit and feather dusters remain the best sellers. Bellart indicates that approximately 40% of sales are chocolate cakes, while the remaining 60% are cakes. “It's cheaper and easier to dish out at matches,” Bellart says.
Although chocolate has become around 17% more expensive, the highest cost of the Easter cakes is the labor of the pastry chefs who design and make the molds for the cakes. In recent years customers buy smaller monkeys.
The president of the Gremi de Pastisseria assures that they have not noticed that as a result of inflation, customers have changed their buying habits. In fact, Bellart assures that most of the clients have ordered their cakes for days and the pastry chefs are working at full capacity to be able to show off their figures and cakes. "We try to raise prices to a minimum because we want customers to come and sell a lot of monkeys," stresses the president of the union.
