Forn de llenya Can Caragol

Miquel Torelló Romer, great-grandfather of the current baker, Gabriel Alomar Gelabert, founded the oven around 1929. In the beginning, the people of Sineu used to take their bread and other products to be baked in the oven. This was a common practice in those times, as bread, cakes, etc. were made in private homes and then taken to the ovens to be baked. Sometimes payment was made in exchange for flour in exchange for baking the bread. As a curiosity, it is worth mentioning that at that time tobacco was sold, half hidden, as it was not allowed to be sold.

In 1945 the oven passed into the hands of Miquel’s daughter, Antònia Torelló Ferriol. She and her husband, Pep Gelabert, began to bake bread and distribute it around the village with a cart. They also went to Palma to sell white soups at the Pere Garau market, spending two days a day there.

In 1975 Joan de na Fons, who was the baker’s apprentice, took over the business and ran it for ten years until, in 1985, he transferred it to Tomeu and Antònia de Can Pinara.

In 2012 the bakery returned to the hands of the founding family when Gabriel Alomar, great-grandson of the first owner, and his wife, Isabel Coll Fuentes, took over the bakery again. Due to the changes of ownership that the business has undergone over the years, it has had several names, such as Can Caramina oven and Can Pinara oven. The current one, Can Caragol, takes its name from the Alomar family, who run it today.

Nowadays it is one of the few bakeries that has a wood-fired oven of the Moorish type in operation, and it also continues to sell white soups with the original machinery from a time when it was still in use. In this Moorish oven, with a floor and dome made of adobe and direct fire, bread is made with a peculiar aroma and taste that reminds us of the bread of our grandparents.

The oven is certified organic and is part of the “Pa d’aquí, forn i tradició” brand, which distinguishes the establishments with a bakery that make the different types of bread in the Balearic Islands. They have now incorporated zero-kilometre and organic flours (xeixa, spelt and kamut). Other products they make, apart from all types of bread, include ensaimadas, potato coca, sweet and savoury coca, panades, cocarrois, etc.