Eating almond sweets in Hydra

A visit at the Tsangaris pastry shop

Almond has always been the favorite ingredient of traditional island sweets. I think that every island has at least a couple of almond sweets variations that travelled through time untouched, to stand out from so many desserts with their simplicity and quality: Honored as an ancient symbol of fertility, almonds and almond sweets are still present to weddings and important happy occasions.

I cracked an almond shell

And inside I drew a picture of you

A verse from one of my island’s traditional songs: I just love it; like almond sweets… I try to taste the best in every island that I visit, and I think that in Hydra, they really know how to make them! We had the chance to meet the queen of the almond sweets art, a gentle yet dynamic woman that devoted her life in doing something that makes people smile: preparing the most aromatic and flavored almond sweets.

Mrs. Anna Tsangari is making those pear shaped treats for more than fifty years. The workshop was established in 1930 and the secret of the Tsagaris almond sweets hasn’t changed since then: a great traditional recipe and the purest ingredients…. and love. Lots of love; Mrs. Anna Tsangari was shining of joy as she prepared the almond sweets. Inside her original industrial-retro workshop (I am always a sucker for that combination), she followed some steps that she mastered well: the almonds were boiled, peeled and ground. Then, they were mixed with warm water, rose water and semolina, in order to create a paste. With that paste she formed the characteristic shaped sweets that were sprinkled with powdered sugar and decorated with a carnation spice. Delicious! Have you tried them, yet?