Saint John's Cake: the good recipe to kick off the summer that begins

BarcelonaThe first Baluard bakery, Anna Bellsolà opened it in 2007. She named it Baluard because it is located on the same street in the Barceloneta neighborhood of Barcelona, right across from the market. Today there are already more than a dozen bakeries, distributed throughout all the neighborhoods of the Catalan capital, where they sell the breads and sweets that have made them so popular since day one.

We explain how to prepare the Sant Joan cake that they make every year. They have revealed the tricks and tips to you so you can make it at home.

Ingredients for a 1,200-gram dough (one of 750 g and another of 350 g)

To make the brioche

• 600 g of medium-strength flour (leaning towards strong)
• 190 g of butter
• 120 g of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 110 g of water
• 40 g of yeast
• 12 ml of anise
• 20 ml of orange flavor
• 12 g of salt
• A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

For decoration

• One beaten egg and a bit of milk
• Candied fruit: orange, cherry, melon
• Local pine nuts
• Sugar

Preparation

To make the brioche, take a bowl to knead the ingredients. Start with the liquid ingredients: the egg, the anise, and the orange flavoring.We will set the water aside to mix the yeast, as the brioche contains a large amount of it.With a kitchen spoon, we mix the yeast with the water, and incorporate it into the bowl where we have the other ingredients.Next, we add the sugar. Mix well until you see that the sugar has dissolved well in the liquids.Once it is dissolved, we add salt to the flour, and add it to the bowl where we have the integrated liquids. Do it little by little. And mix it well with the help of the kitchen spatula.There are many recipes for brioche elaborations. Some add milk instead of water, but the traditional Baluard recipe uses water.And now it's time to start working the dough with your hands.Take it out of the bowl, place it on top of the kitchen counter, and keep folding it over itself. It's a long process; you need thirty minutes of work to get an integrated and fine dough.Let it rest for fifteen minutes, covered with the same bowl.After this time, incorporate the butter, which should have been at room temperature. Stretch the dough a little and place the butter on the top layer.When you check that it no longer sticks to the table and that the dough is elastic, you will have it.When you check that it no longer sticks to the table and that the dough is elastic, you will have it.A trick to check that the dough is well made is to take a piece and stretch it. If it remains smooth like a sheet without breaking, the dough will be done. If it breaks, let it rest again for two minutes.After two minutes, let it rest again in the bowl, with a little extra virgin olive oil and covered with plastic wrap. You will have to put it in the refrigerator for eight hours.After eight hours, you will notice that the dough has moved, but it is not as inflated; the cold has prevented it.We take it out of the bowl, and now we divide the dough according to the weight we want each cake to have.We suggest you make two: a medium one, 750 grams, and a small one, 350 grams. Check their weight with the help of a scale.Shape them into balls and let them rest again because they are cold from the refrigerator and you need them to lose their coldness to stretch them.Let them rest on a baking sheet with parchment paper, where you have put a drizzle of olive oil. They should rest for about forty minutes, covered with a clean kitchen towel.After forty minutes, we will now stretch the two doughs. Stretch them on the counter with your hands until they start to take an oval shape. Put a little oil on the counter so they don't stick. You can stretch them with the help of a rolling pin. They should be one centimeter thick.Let the cakes rest again for forty minutes. You can do this at room temperature (40 minutes) or in the oven, at a temperature of 25-30 degrees, for twenty minutes. With this fermentation, you should achieve that the dough doubles in volume.After this time, paint the doughs with a mixture of egg and milk with the help of a brush; this step will help us to stick the fruit.Place candied fruit on top, which you can buy ready-made: candied orange, melon, cherries, local pine nuts, and sugar. You can rinse the orange beforehand if you find it has too much syrup. The decoration is up to you, so arrange the fruit to your liking. After adding the fruit, add the pine nuts and, finally, the sugar.You can now put the cakes in the oven, preheated to 170 degrees, for about twenty/twenty-five minutes. With a convection oven, you can use the fan option, and heat from the top and bottom. If you have a steam option, you can also use it for a few seconds to give them a little more shine and volume.After twenty-five minutes, you can take them out of the oven. Let them cool before cutting and tasting them. And that's it.Four tips for a summer night

To follow the ritual of the start of summer, and with permission from the writer William Shakespeare, from whom we have half-borrowed the title of one of his comedies (A Midsummer Night's Dream),we explain how you can best enjoy your Saint John's cake.

• If the Saint John's cake you make (or buy) has cream, the best advice is to eat it the same day.
• Otherwise, store it in the refrigerator and consume it within a maximum of eight hours, always ensuring that the cold chain has not been broken.
• If you are one of those who like candied fruit, you should keep in mind that at bakeries you can buy it ready to your liking. And the curiosity is that melon is originally melon, and not pumpkin as has sometimes been said. It is melon, but dyed with dark green edible coloring.
• If the Saint John's cake does not have cream and you have some left over, you won't need to put it in the fridge. And what's more, the next day you can eat it after toasting it a little in the toaster or in the oven.

Enjoy your meal!