Jordi Reverter

Cassà de la Selva's Nèctar bak­ery boasts more than 140 years of his­tory. Most com­monly called Can Cristià, it is cur­rently run by the fifth gen­er­a­tion of the fam­ily. Sal­vador Cristià i Ma­ri­mon opened the bak­ery in car­rer de la Mel and it is still there today. Then his son, who was also the mayor of the town dur­ing the sec­ond re­pub­lic, took over. In fact, the lo­cals got used to many coun­cil meet­ings being held in front of the ovens as he pre­pared the dough. His daugh­ter and her hus­band, Pere Re­verter, took over from him and in­tro­duced pas­try bak­ing in 1952.

Now, Jordi and Anna, have opened a new shop, this time in Girona, which of­fers a wide range of prod­ucts from es­tab­lished baked prod­ucts, sweets and tra­di­tional cakes along­side more mod­ern style de­lights. Anna's cre­ations are all unique and very spe­cial.

1.​Recipes: Dat­ing back to the times of the grand­fa­ther and great-grand­fa­ther, some are more than 100 years old and still in use today.

2.​Mixer: Used for mak­ing all kinds of dough, to beat eggs for the cakes, and to mix the flour and but­ter to make bis­cuits. It all de­pends on the recipe.

3.​Tray with fine pas­tries: On the tray in front of Jordi we see tra­di­tional cakes made with but­ter, truf­fles, and so on. And on an­other with more avant-garde cakes of choco­late mousse, pas­sion fruit, mac­a­roons.

4. An ice-cream roll: A clas­sic!

5. “Aran­del·les”: A re­cent spe­cial­ity in the shape of the caps on top of the corks in cava bot­tles.

6. The “Car­rac”: A choco­late sponge and vanilla crepe, bathed in choco­late. It is just like one of the rings used to make corks for cava.

7. Mag­num cork: Giant hand-made cava corks, made by hand in Cassà, and filled with cork-shaped bis­cuits filled with milk choco­late and pra­line and bathed in choco­late.

8. Cata­lan­ets: Wafer filled with pra­line coated with dark choco­late in the shape of a “bar­retina”, a tra­di­tional Cata­lan cap.

9. Ad­di­tive-free bread: Very nat­ural, with long fer­men­ta­tion, made with buck­wheat and corn.

10. Flour-pots: A uten­sil used to mea­sure the flour.

11. Wooden spat­ula: Used to place the un­cooked loaves into the oven and then re­move them once they are baked.

12. Scales: Es­sen­tial for any bak­ery. We now use dig­i­tal scales.

13. Bak­ing table: The work­bench from the shop, which opened in 1952.

14.​Bottles of Char­treuse: Made by monks who were ex­pelled from France.