Sugar-free Easter cakes make their way to bakeries as health consciousness grows

A changing world has opened up doors to many changes in cultural traditions, such as the Easter Monday 'Mona de Pasqua' cake.

The delicacy is usually a delight among children and adults alike, often topped with a chocolate figurine from popular culture. 

However, as consumers gradually become more health-conscious, and society more aware of intolerances, a trend toward sugar-free 'Mones' has grown. Thus, a new niche in the market, unimaginable a few short years ago, has been able to open and grow.

In Barcelona, it is not difficult to find bakeries that will adapt their recipes to an increasingly demanding public with varied tastes and needs. The Paic-Stop Sucre patisserie, in the district of Sant Martí, have been selling treats with sugar replaced by alternative sweeteners for years. 

Isidre Puigbó, from the Paic-Stop Sucre pastry shop, explains to the Catalan News Agency (ACN) that customers and bakers have worked together to arrive at top quality recipes after lots of "feedback." He says that based on what clients tell them, the cake makers re-examine what and how they can make their delicacies. 

"It's been a very nice learning experience," Puigbó explains, whose bakery has been working on sugar-free sweets since 2010.

Puigbó admits that consumers were a bit reluctant at first. "Diabetics have been deceived a lot and we must not forget that this is a disease," he laments.

To overcome these hesitancies, he opted for giving a lot of information to customers. The acceptance of the clientele meant that they gradually increased their sugar-free offering, which today ranges from cheesecakes to tea biscuits, and of course, traditional Easter treats.

Sugar-free pastries are a growing phenomenon, Puigbó tells ACN, with sales growing and customers looking for more and more product variety. "So we have to get to work, we have to bring out new products all the time," he says. 

When it comes to Easter cakes, he says that the idea came to him one day when a father and daughter came into the store looking for a sugar-free 'Mona de Pasqua'. "My world fell apart because we had a store full of cakes and I told him no. Their faces stuck with me, and we started to think about sugar-free Easter cakes," he recalls.

To make them, the bakery uses alternative sweeteners, with a taste usually identical to that of sugar, but they are slightly more expensive. At Easter, they usually sell around 100 "regular" Easter cakes and between 50-70 without sugar.