What are the best Sardinian desserts?

There can be many ways to intimately get in touch with a place, but food (traditional of course) is certainly one of the most used tools since ancient times.

Today, where eating habits are more and more homogeneous and it is possible to eat pizza, sushi or hamburgers in any part of the globe, the value of this connection given by traditional dishes increases the experience of travel, becoming a characterizing and indispensable part of it

Therefore, in the world in which we live, globalized and hyper-connected, keeping alive the memory of tastes, ingredients and manual skills of a past sometimes not so distant take on a new value.
In Sardinia this memory is very present in particular for the confectionery part. No artisan pastry shop operating on the island would dream of opening without a large showcase of typical sweets, each family has one or more members who are experts in some Sardinian dessert.

Let’s start our short tour on which are the best Sardinian sweets.

We will start with the first, the most widespread, the one that everyone agrees, then we will move on to examine some local specialties.

Seadas: the most popular typical dessert

Seadas are the most common Sardinian typical dessert
A simple and traditional recipe of evident and ancient peasant origins. Two sheets of pasta that contain a filling of fresh sheep’s cheese, flavored with lemon zest. Seadas is cooked only one way: fried in plenty of hot oil. An exceptional combination of sweet and savory. Followed by the garnish: classic with honey (to try with chestnut) but those with icing sugar are also very popular.
Where are the best ones made? It’s a bit like asking for a beach beautiful and not very popular. The answer is always different. It would be worth tasting a little everywhere.

The typical sweets of Nuoro

The most important city in central Sardinia is not surprising for just one unsuspected cultural life. In fact, even in terms of confectionery it offers extraordinary examples of a manual skill that touches authentic points of art.

The Coricheddos

They look like works of art made of filigree. Eating them seems almost a crime. But they are very good, and one easily succumbs to the temptation to savor their greedy, sweet but not cloying filling. Usually reserved for the most important holidays and anniversaries, they require incredible dexterity to be packaged. Their cost is commensurate with their extraordinary beauty.

S’Aranzada

S’Aranzanda is also a dessert originally from the Nuoro area. It could perhaps be improperly defined as a kind of crunchy, created with a balanced and skilful amalgam of thinly sliced orange peel with a knife, high quality honey, the exquisite toasted almonds of the hilly almond groves, still frequent in Sardinia. These simple and genuine ingredients are first cooked and then cooled. The mixture obtained is placed in cardboard for food use and decorated with colored sprinkles.

The Caschettas

If the coricheddos will fascinate you for their light and light appearance, as well as for their goodness.
This traditional dessert was originally prepared for the celebration of the dead, or for important celebrations such as weddings.
The Caschettas, originally from Belvì, are composed of a very thin, crunchy and white pastry that recalls the host for its consistency, but even more subtle and fragrant on the palate. This pastry contains a filling of sapa (the cooked must, protagonist of the Sardinian confectionery tradition), almonds and honey.

They are made in the most varied shapes: horseshoe, often elliptical, for heart-shaped weddings. Do you want to take a nice tour of the artisan confectionery workshops of Nuoro? You can take our Residence Hotel Grandi Magazzini as a base. Centrally located, it is perfect to end a “busy” day in terms of taste.

The typical sweets of Ogliastra

Perhaps the wildest coastal part of Sardinia, offers interesting variations of sweets also known in other parts of Sardinia, or typical of the place. Some of them, in our opinion, can be included among the best Sardinian sweets.

Is Pardulas

Is Pardulas are perhaps the most popular dessert in the area. Originally prepared for Easter but today easily found in the daily production of local laboratories.
Like almost all Sardinian sweets, the Pardule with natural or slightly processed ingredients, children of a peasant and agro-pastoral tradition: fresh cheese, eggs, lard, fine semolina, sugar, flavored with lemon, orange or both.

Round, they are like a small basket of dough that contains a soft and fragrant leavened filling. When opened they release a scent that says only one thing: eat me!

Su Cunfettu

Su Cunfettu is the traditional dessert of Baunei, a characteristic center of Ogliastra, located about half an hour’s drive from our Galanias Hotel & Retreat

Made entirely with local products, really tasty even if made for those with good teeth, it has always been prepared unchanged. Its preparation, however, is linked to the wedding banquet, of which he was the sweet prince, the most awaited. Prepared by the couple’s families, tradition has it on the Wednesday before the ceremony, it is made in a synthesis of honey, almonds and orange peel from which the white part is carefully removed. After cooking the ingredients, done over low heat, the mixture is spread on a previously wet wooden table, and spread with a rolling pin almost as if to obtain a sheet of about 1cm. which is left to cool and solidify. While still warm, it is cut into rhombuses of about 5 cm in size. Originally it was served over orange leaves.

The typical sweets of Gallura

Gallura, the linguistic and cultural enclave of the north east with marked similarities with Corsica, develops its own confectionary traditions. From our hotels in Olbia, Porto San Paolo, Arzachena e Baia Sardinia e Santa Teresa Gallura you can easily visit the many artisan workshops that keep the traditions of this area alive.

Li Acciuleddi

are the typical sweets of the carnival, originally from Gallura but now widespread throughout Sardinia, they are made of semolina and lard pasta, rolled up and made like a braid. They are garnished with abundant honey (the original name is acciuleddi ‘e meli) and orange peel.

Li Casgiatini

If you want to argue with a Gallurese you can say that “li Casgiatini” are like Pardulas. He will immediately point out the dimensions (double), the difference in the filling, which includes raisins, unsalted fresh cheese, that crown shape that characterizes the most eaten dessert in Gallura, once at Easter, now available for purchase every day. Then he will tell you that Gallura desserts are the best .. but that’s another story.

Li Papassini

Papassini are fragrant rhomboid-shaped sweets that are prepared in winter, from the feast of the dead to Christmas and beyond. Made with a rich dough of shortcrust pastry, raisins, almonds, walnuts, milk and lemon zest, they are kneaded together until a compact but soft dough is obtained. They are then informed and cooked at a moderate temperature. A glaze called hood made with whipped egg white is often added to the papassini. Irresistible even if not exactly dietetic.

We have completed this brief overview of what in our opinion are the best Sardinian sweets. If you are Sardinian, we are almost certain you will not agree, especially if you are not from the areas we have described. If you don’t live on the island, we hope to have given you some sweet directions to discover another side of our beautiful island.