Square and vegan donuts, Barcelona's last sweet wish

They look like doughnuts, but they are called Cuvo. Square-shaped, vegan and handmade in a workshop in the Gràcia neighborhood, they have become a trend in Barcelona. Three months after being established, they ship 500 doughnuts a day, but their potential is greater. Fernando Bosch started making them in a vegan supermarket he opened in his municipality, Premià de Mar (Maresme), and when he ran out of donut suppliers, he dared to make them himself. The success was such that he closed the store to focus on the cuvos. They have about 15 varieties, different points of sale and can be purchased on their website.

Fernando Bosch has spent a crazy weekend selling his sweets non-stop at Primavera Sound, the festival they have used to reinforce their brand image, recently created a few months ago with his sister, Clàudia Bosch, who helps him in the projection of the business. Since they decided to bet everything on their invention, orders do not stop growing. In addition to vegan and square, their buns look like donuts. No nuances.

From his workshop, Fernando remembers how he became vegan shortly after turning twenty. "I felt hypocritical, trying to save animals and then eating them," she explains. Since childhood he was very animalistic. He had adopted several dogs and was a volunteer for the shelter of Mataró, but he ate meat. Until one day he decided that animals would no longer be a consumer good for him. "I decided to live in an empathetic and responsible way," she adds.

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With a very early passion for cooking, he began to study Law, a career that he later changed to Advertising. After some time working on what he had studied, he decided that cooking was his passion and wanted to give it a try. He worked for a while in the kitchen of a restaurant in his municipality and when he realized how difficult it was to find vegan food in his town, he ventured to open his supermarket.

Fernando Bosch in his workshop. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

But his biggest success so far has been these vegan donuts, which he got after training at Toni Rodriguez's Vegan Pastry Academy. Their goal was to make a good product, rich in flavor and as healthy as possible. But it was also set as a goal that it was not too heavy or too expensive.

Simple doughnuts cost 1.80 euros and are traditional sugar donuts, covered in milk chocolate, dark or white chocolate, plus a strawberry flavor. They also have stuffed donuts, such as lotus biscuit (2.10 euros), kinder bueno (2.15 euros), oreo (2.25 euros) or verdi, bathed in white chocolate and filled with pistachio cream (2.50 euros).

The recipe does not reveal everything, but it does tell that the dough has flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, yeast, water and anise from the Monkey, as well as vegetable margarine and soy lecithin. No trace of the egg, cow's milk or lard with which these buns are usually made. The resting time of the dough is one of the keys to make it fluffy. But it was also decisive for the result to use an arm mixer, he says.

Cuvo are also made with pistachio cream. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

With this foundation, imagination does the rest. Now he is thinking about more summery flavors, for which he will use citrus, and make a special edition for Sant Joan. The donut of roscón de Reyes that they made last Christmas was a success. Apart from the online sale, with home delivery or collection in the workshop (soon they will also be in Glovo), you can find their products in some cafeterias of the Sorli Discau supermarkets, in the Vegans chain, in the signature of breakfast at home Matías Buenos días or in other cafes in Barcelona such as La Papa.

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Fernando is convinced that the shape of his doughnuts is the most natural. "The anomaly is that they are round," he reflects, pointing out that to store and transport them, their square shape makes more sense. Of course, no two are alike, which shows that they are truly handmade. "We have them squared," reads their slogan. "Not only because of the shape, behind it there is an attitude, enough of so much processing, of such industrial products," adds Clàudia.