Valldemossa and Deià · Traditional
The coca de patata
The coca de patata is the sweet bun of Valldemossa: a soft dough enriched with mashed potato and lard, baked to a pale dome and buried in icing sugar, eaten in the afternoon with a glass of horchata or a coffee on the mountain terraces.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A glass of horchata de chufa in summer, a coffee in winter.
Valldemossa, the village where Chopin spent a winter, has one pastry, and the bakeries on its main street bake it all day: a bun of flour, potato, sugar, eggs and lard, risen slowly, baked pale and dusted white. The potato keeps it soft for days, and the mountain villages of the Tramuntana, Deià and Sóller included, serve it with the merienda at five.
Belmond La Residencia puts it on its terrace tea with the sunset, which is the best place on the island to eat it.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 200 g floury potatoes, boiled and mashed
- 500 g strong flour
- 15 g fresh yeast
- 150 g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 100 g pork lard or butter, soft
- 100 ml warm milk
- Icing sugar
Method
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk; mix with flour, sugar, eggs and the cooled mashed potato into a soft dough.
- Knead in the soft lard until the dough is smooth and elastic; rise one hour.
- Shape into 12 round buns on a tray, well apart, and rise again until doubled, about two hours.
- Bake at 180 °C for 15 minutes; they should stay pale.
- Cool and roll in icing sugar until white.
Where to taste it
