An Asturian sweet pastry: small rolls or turnovers of thin dough filled with a paste of ground walnuts, sugar and anise, then traditionally deep-fried (a modern puff-pastry version is oven-baked). The fried ones are dusted with sugar while still warm. They are a festive sweet of the Asturian calendar, eaten especially around Carnival, Lent and All Saints' Day. Crisp outside, dense and fragrant with anise within.
Asturias, where the casadiella is a long-standing regional sweet. Its name is generally traced to the Latin capsella, 'little box', describing the closed pastry case. The walnut-sugar-anise filling reflects an old confectionery use of local nuts, and the pastry is firmly tied to the Asturian festive calendar — Carnival and Lent, All Saints' Day on 1 November, and the autumn amagueestu chestnut-and-cider gatherings; some food histories trace the nut filling to older Mediterranean nut-and-honey sweets, though that lineage is not firmly documented.
A short golden roll, blistered and crisp from the oil, that shatters at the first bite into a soft, slightly grainy walnut paste. The filling is sweet and oily-rich from the nuts, scented strongly with anise — both ground aniseed and a splash of anise liquor — with the sugar coating adding a sandy crunch. Warm, the contrast of crackling shell against dense moist centre is at its best; cold, it firms and the anise deepens.
The filling is bound by the walnuts' own oil: ground nuts, sugar and anise are worked into a cohesive paste that holds together inside the case without leaking. The dough is rolled thin and the parcels are sealed tight with a fork or twisted ends so the filling stays in during frying. Deep-frying in hot oil flash-cooks the thin shell to a crisp, blistered crust by driving off surface moisture, while the dense filling stays moist; sugar is dusted on while warm so it clings. The 20th-century puff-pastry variant relies instead on baking, where steam lifts the laminated layers.
Variations
The two main forms are the traditional fried empanadilla-style roll on a wine-or-anise dough, and the modern baked version using puff pastry; fillings are usually walnut but sometimes hazelnut, and a few cooks add a little grated lemon zest or cinnamon; the fried ones are finished in sugar, the baked ones often brushed with egg and sugared on top. Some households make a longer log shape cut into pieces rather than individual parcels.
On the Palate
Where Casadielles sits in the Spanish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour
- 110 min
Grind the walnuts and mix with sugar and ground aniseed plus a splash of anise liquor into a cohesive paste.
Watch outWork the ground walnuts, sugar and anise into a cohesive paste — the nuts' own oil binds it so the filling holds together and does not leak out when fried.
- 235 min
Make a dough with flour, oil or butter, a little anise or white wine and a pinch of salt; rest it 30 minutes.
- 38 min
Roll the dough thin and cut into rectangles.
- 412 min
Spoon filling onto each, roll up or fold into a parcel, and seal the edges firmly with a fork.
- 512 min
Deep-fry in hot oil, turning, until golden and blistered, then drain.
Watch outSeal the edges firmly with a fork before frying — any loose seam and the filling escapes into the hot oil.
- 63 min
Roll the warm casadielles in sugar and serve.
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