Pestiños (sweet fried pastries) // Easter food
🌱🐰 Easter is a time for sweet traditions, but it doesn’t have to come with food waste or excessive packaging. Grandma Sita’s take on Easter keeps it plant-based, homemade, and zero-waste—because celebrating sustainably is the sweetest treat of all!
😋 Discover crunchy Pestiños, a classic Spanish Easter pastry, naturally vegan, deep-fried and coated in sugar. There is no standard recipe; vary from region to region in Andalucía, Castilla-LaMancha, and other parts of Spain.
😆 Fun fact, Pestiños is also known as borrachos or borrachuelos (specifically in the Málaga area), which means drunk people in Spanish language.
- INGREDIENTS
250 gr all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
75 ml extra virgin olive oil
125ml white wine or orange juice
zest of half-orange
1 tbsp anise seeds (optional)
A pinch of salt
Sunflower oil or neutral veggie oil for deep frying
Unrefined cane sugar or agave syrup for coating
- METHOD
1. Infuse the olive oil – Heat olive oil with anise seeds and orange zest on low heat for 10 minutes, remove orange zest and let cool to room temperature.
2. Mix with flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Add wine or juice and knead into a dough.
3. Continue kneading for 15 minutes, form dough into a ball, and cover with a damp cloth. Rest for 30 mins to 1 hour.
4. Make small portions of dough, Roll them out, and cut them into thin long shapes. Fold in the two long sides and stick them together to make an envelope-like shape (optional).
5. Fry until golden (approx. 2-3 minutes) in a deep-frying pan on medium-high heat. Remove and place onto kitchen paper to drain the excess oil.
6. Coat with sugar or agave while warm. Bon appetite!
👵💚 Grandma Sita’s tips:*The oil for deep frying should be at a constant temperature. Fry 3-4 pestiños at a time to avoid overcrowding the pan and cooling down the oil too much.
*Store properly Pestiños in an airtight tin to keep perfectly fresh and crispy for weeks. Freeze them for long-term storage.
*Strain oil through a fine sieve or cheesecloth after cooling to remove food particles. Store in a glass jar for reuse in a cool, dark place to prevent rancidity. Infuse It! Add herbs, garlic, or chilli to give old oil a second life as a flavoured drizzle.
*Use leftover orange peels for natural cleaners or tea.
📗 The “Pestiño” dates back to the 16th century, mentioned in the book “La Lozana Andaluza” written in 1528. “Pestiños” shares many similarities to “chebakia”, a Maghrebi pastry made of strips of dough rolled to resemble a rose, deep-fried until golden, then coated with a syrup made of honey and orange blossom water and sprinkled with sesame.
🌎 Incorporating plant-based treats into festive celebrations worldwide is becoming more popular. All of us can take action at home to reduce waste and transition our diets to be more planet-friendly before, during, and after the Easter season. Every bit counts. Happy Easter!