Mona de Pascua (Easter bunnies)

An orange-flavoured sweet bread from Comunidad Valenciana that is typically eaten at Easter. Very similar to hot cross buns.


Hola!

Today I bring you an orange-flavoured sweet bread from Comunidad Valenciana that is typically eaten at Easter. It is very similar to hot cross buns, but normally in animal shapes. I shaped mine into Easter bunnies.

In Spanish they’re called monas de Pascua, and the word mona comes from the Arab. It was supposed to mean “gift to your mouth”. This used to be a typical gift from Godparents to their godchildren, symbolising the end of Lent and the beginning of Easter. When I lived in Spain, I used to look forward to Easter every year so that I could eat these. At Easter, some people would spend the day in the countryside and eat a mona outdoors, while enjoying the beginning of the good weather season, and maybe even flying a kite. When I was little, monas were topped with a coloured hard-boiled egg. Tradition says, you have to crack it on your beloveds’ forehead. Oh, did I take it to the letter with my grandma and mum, poor them. Nowadays, somebody had the great idea of replacing the boiled eggs by chocolate eggs, and it has become the little ones’ (and not so little) favourite version.

As it happened to me with other local customs, I only realised that this was only known near Valencia when I went to live to Granada (South Spain). I was in shock when I found out that they didn’t even know what monas were! We have so many regional food traditions in Spain that Spaniards from other regions don’t even know about them. Doesn’t my homeland have such a rich and diverse gastronomy?


PLANT POWER, MAKE UP!

Since I came to the UK, and especially since I transitioned to a plant-based diet, I have been craving monas during Easter, so I wanted to put an end to it. An easy vegan swap from the original recipe was to use flaxseed eggs rather than eggs. I also found recipes with dried yeast and with fresh yeast, but I decided to use fresh yeast because of that fantastic bread dough smell. Fresh yeast is easily available in Spain in any supermarket, but in London I only found it in Planet Organic and Wholefoods, although I’m sure it will be available somewhere else. If not, the accepted conversion is to use three times more fresh yeast than dried yeast. For example, my recipe calls for 12g and then another 12g of fresh yeast, so you can use 4g and then another 4g of dried yeast, which equals one dried yeast sachet (7-8g).


MONA DE PASCUA (EASTER BUNNIES)


Makes: 8 monas
Prep: 30 minutes (+ proofing times)
Bake: 20 minutes


INGREDIENTS

Mother dough

1/4 cup water, warm
12g fresh yeast or 3.5g dried yeast
1 tsp. brown sugar
100g strong bread flour

Dough

1 orange, zest
5 tbsp. orange juice
12g fresh yeast or 3.5g dried yeast
5 tbsp. sunflower oil
1 tbsp. orange blossom water (agua de azahar)
6 tbsp. chickpea flour
6 tbsp. soya milk
1/3 cup brown sugar
400g strong bread flour

Decorating
Maple syrup
Nonpareils (anisitos de colores)
8 vegan Easter chocolate eggs (optional)


INSTRUCTIONS

  1. To make the mother dough, mix the yeast with the warm water and stir until dissolved. Add in the sugar and flour and, mix well to combine. Cover and keep in the fridge overnight. In the morning, take it out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Zest the orange into a big bowl. Make the juice with one or more oranges and put 5 tbsp. in the microwave for 20 seconds. Mix in the yeast into the water and stir until dissolved. 
  3. In the big bowl, add in to the zest the oil and orange blossom water, and whisk to combine. Add the chickpea flour, soya milk, yeast, sugar and the mother dough. Mix well and add the flour in batches until the dough is formed. 
  4. Drop the dough onto a clean counter, previously dusted with flour, and knead until the dough starts separating from the counter, about 10 minutes. If you use a stand mixer with a dough hook, knead at low speed until the walls of the bowl are clean and the dough clings to the hook. Make a ball and let it rest at ambient covered with a cloth until it doubles its size (1-2h).
  5. Split the dough in 8 with the help of a kitchen scale. From each ball, make a long sausage and twist the ends over the baking tray lined with baking paper, to make it look like a bunny. Cover the monas with a cloth and proof at ambient until they double their size (1-2h), or overnight in the fridge.
  6. Bake the monas in a preheated oven at 180°C for 13-15 minutes or until they are a nice golden-brown. As soon as you take them out of the oven and on the same baking tray, glaze them one at a time with maple syrup with a brush and quickly sprinkle the nonpareils on top.
  7. Leave the monas to cool down completely on a cooling rack. Once completely cool, pop one chocolate egg on top of each.

Eat your mona on the day if possible or the next day, or keep maximum 2 days covered with a cloth.

Bon profit!