A donut-looking dessert, a torrija at heart. Culinary creativity once again pushes the boundaries of one of the most beloved desserts in Spanish gastronomy. Plademunt, the imaginary restaurant, won yesterday the competition The Best Torrija in the Community of Madrid 2026 in the Innovation category with its Torridonut, which revived the hornazo recipe from Alcalá to achieve the pastry world’s equivalent of squaring the circle.
The proposal by Iván Plademunt, which starts from a technical and conceptual review of this sweet dough, a type of mona, won over the jury not only for its unusual shape but also for its flavor, the result of a laborious process of nearly 40 hours: “We prepare the dough, ferment it, cut it and fry it in the shape of a donut. When it is freshly fried, what we do is inject it with milk that we have infused for four hours with sugar, cinnamon, orange and lemon,” explained the chef. After that, they let it rest for 12 hours so that the crumb begins to break down and, once coated in sugar and cinnamon, it is ready.
Torrija tradicional
In the Traditional category, La Raspa VK took first place with a classic recipe, which nevertheless carried an original touch. “It is made with a brioche bread that we bake ourselves; it uses milk infused with cinnamon, lemon and orange. We do not fry it, we caramelize it with butter,” explains Paula Beer, who last year won the award in the Innovation category with a torrija crafted at Nude Cake. This 2026, however, the pastry chef has stepped onto the podium directly from her own food stall, located at the Numancia market in Puente de Vallecas, where she prepares this dessert that evokes what grandmothers used to make and “tastes like home.”
The podium of this sixth edition of the Best Traditional Torrija in Madrid’s Restauración Competition, whose final was held at the Escuela Superior de Hostelería y Turismo de Madrid, is completed by Pastelería Manolo by Hermanas Manzano and El Rincón de Antonia in second and third place in the Traditional category, and by Inclán Brutal Bar and Formentor in the Innovation category.
