Mexican

Tamarind, a tropical fruit native to Asia, looks sort of like a brown fava bean with a hard tan shell that surrounds a sticky, meaty brown flesh. The fruit is often mixed with chile, and I found more than three dozen different candies made from it. Tamarind sorbet has a seductive tartness that comes through in this smooth nieve.

If you’ve ever visited Oaxaca, my favorite state in all of Mexico, undoubtedly you have seen people walking around with cones or cups filled with fluorescent green sorbet. I try to stay away from colorings, especially when it comes to fruit preparations, but if you can get past the scary color, you’ll discover a surprisingly refreshing flavor. The color may not be subtle, but the flavor is, and lime is one of the most popular flavors in Oaxaca. Try to select very green small limes, because they tend to have the best flavor. Be sure to wash and dry them very well. Although the original recipe doesn’t call for fresh lime juice, I find that a little bit balances the sweetness of the sorbet and adds another layer of flavor.

Whenever I crave a cold sweet treat, I always go for the nieves. Ice cream is great, of course, but I am all about the fruit. Anyone who knows me knows that I can eat a quarter of a watermelon in half an hour, that I eat six to ten pieces of fruit per day during the summer, and that I have a particular weakness for stone fruit. The fruit is always the main focus in sorbet, with no distractions. Although the variety of stone fruit is not as diverse in Mexico as it is in other parts of the world, we have some tart and sweet apricots that make an extremely refreshing and silky nieve. Feel free to substitute any other stone fruit that is ripe and in season.

Sliced cucumbers mixed with salt, lime, and chile are often eaten in Mexico as a snack and are even sold at movie theaters. I was about thirteen when I first tried this combination as a sorbet on a warm day in Cuernavaca. Well, this time the flavor of the cucumber was heightened with a little sugar, and the sorbet was topped with a mixture of chile and lime. I’ve included the chiles in the sorbet itself, by infusing them in the syrup; however, you can always sprinkle some powdered chile on top after it has set.

Whenever I visit Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, I always look forward to the ice creams in the main square. During my last visit, as I waited for the crowds to diminish at noontime so that I could interview Amparo Contreras de Galván with my childhood friend Martha Silva, I had a couple of scoops of sorbet. I tend to order the same ones wherever I go, but the membrillo one at La Pancada caught my eye. As I took a bite, without even swallowing it, I knew it had to be in the book. Although the famous ice creams in the town are called pastes, I have to say, this was the one for me. Whenever something so special comes my way, I remember it vividly, taking mental notes of each layer of flavor and texture that at times allows me to re-create things I love so much. I must say, this quince sorbet is pretty close to the one I had. I suggest you make a batch of the Requesón Cheese Ice Cream (page 185) to go with it, in the classic pairing of cheese and quince but in a whole new way.

Although pumpkin is not technically a fruit, it is eaten in this sweet preparation, as many fruits are. There are many foods specially made for Día de los Muertos celebrations throughout Mexico, and this is one of the most representative. It is traditionally cooked in clay casseroles, with the seeds and strands attached, but you can also clean and dry the seeds and snack on them later.

Milhojas, or “thousand leaves,” is the name given to this pastry because, just as in the fall, when the autumn leaves trickle down and move as the wind blows, tiny pieces of this crunchy, flaky pastry fly around when you take a bite of it. This recipe is one example where the French influence in Mexico began to be very apparent during the rule of Porfirio Díaz at the beginning of the twentieth century, and a love for classic French pastries has remained part of our tradition ever since. Milhojas have remained a favorite dessert and are found all over Mexico in many pastry shops and bread bakeries. As with many other desserts, they are often sold by the slice. Although milhojas are often filled with jams, mousses, and whipped cream, this one is layered with pastry cream, which I find to be the most representative one of all. The addition of mangoes and coconut gives it a nice freshness and tropical flavor. Traditional puff pastry is a bit time-consuming to prepare, so I have provided a quick “mock” version that will work very well when you don’t have the time or patience required to make the real deal.

This custard is a very tasty dessert and is often served with fruit, cookies, or pound cake. Although it is called a sauce, the natilla takes center stage rather than the other way around. Many convents serve it in a large bowl and dust freshly ground canela over a stencil to create a religious symbol or figure on top. I particularly like it with fruit such as mango, guava, or berries.

Capirotada is Mexico’s version of bread pudding and is traditionally served during Semana Santa (Lent). It is made with day-old crusty bread that is lightly fried and layered or topped with various ingredients, such as raisins, peanuts, coconut, tomato, or cheese, and baked with sweetened milk or piloncillo syrup. I had the good fortune to stumble upon this incredible bread pudding in Tlaxcala. Cecilia and I met through my dad and immediately sparked a friendship. She told me her mom’s recipe was the best capirotada ever and that it had to be in the book. She was so right! I visited her mother’s home, where I stayed and cooked for a few days. I had never met her before but was warmly welcomed by her with kindness and sweetness. The day after we prepared this unusual bread pudding (originally from Jalisco), the sweet aroma of fragrant guavas and piloncillo lingered in the air as we enjoyed a slice for breakfast with a delicious glass of cold raw milk.

Niño envuelto means “wrapped baby,” and it is basically a sponge cake filled with some kind of jam, cream, cajeta, or mousse, rolled up tightly, and covered with confectioner’s sugar, cream, coconut, almonds, chocolate, or meringue. It is served as a dessert, but you can also find it in panaderías sold in slices. Although I have always loved sweets, cake has never been my favorite dessert, and I think it’s because I really like crunchy things. The one exception to this rule is pastel de fresas con crema (vanilla cake filled and covered with whipped cream and strawberries). When I think about this cake, my mouth waters and I remember the Gran Via bakery, which has been making one of the best versions of this cake since the late 1960s. When the bakery first started, they sold only two things: this strawberry layered cake and huge meringues filled with whipped cream. So, when deciding what kind of niño envuelto to make, it seemed only natural to blend all of these flavors and textures into one. It is important that the eggs be at room temperature to ensure a spongy cake, so separate the eggs, cover them, and allow to come to room temperature for 30 minutes before whipping.

I hesitated about including this recipe in the book because these sweet, cheeselike curds are quite unattractive and you might get scared away if this is the first recipe you try. There is no way around it, and even the most experienced photographer couldn’t beautify them. Once you get past their appearance, however, their wonderful, sweet cinnamony flavor comes through, and you will realize that the taste makes up for what they lack in the beauty department. They were originally created in the city of Zamora in Michoacán, but this recipe is derived from one prepared by the Esperanza clan at Dulcería Esperanza, a family-run candy business in another part of the same state that cooks more than 30 gallons of milk a day in huge rectangular copper pots to make them.

When I was a little girl, I would sneak downstairs with my cat Lider, while my sister and parents were asleep, and search the cupboard for the doily-lined tray that held these chocolate “sandwiches” decorated with an amusing chocolate scribble. I think these cookies were the first solid that my little brother ate. Garabatos are still baked in the home of a lovely woman named Elvira Bleyer. She extended her home kitchen, attached a storefront to it, and named it Délvis. The bakery has expanded and is now a franchise. These cookies are not part of the traditional Mexican repertoire, but they are part of my culinary memory growing up in Mexico City and are still served for dessert. This version was developed through a collection of recipes from friends and colleagues, but mostly from palatable memory.

This dessert, also called chocoflan, gets its name from a magical thing that occurs in the oven. You cover the mold with some cajeta, pour in the chocolate cake batter, pour a layer of flan on top, and cover it lightly. It goes into the oven in a bigger dish with some hot water, and when you check whether it’s done a little while later, you find that the flan is hidden somewhere and all you see is chocolate cake! You wait for it to cool, unmold it, and there is the flan! This is a sticky, rich, sweet dessert that is not for the faint of heart. Although you can make it in individual ramekins, there is something quite exciting about slicing a full-size one. It never ceases to amaze me.

Cajeta is another name for fruit pastes, or ates, and is a term still used in certain states, but the most familiar form of cajeta is the sweet caramel made from goat’s or cow’s milk and cooked down with sugar in copper pots. The goat’s milk has a distinctive grassy, musky flavor and is the most commonly used for this application. The name derives from the wooden boxes called cajetes made from tejamanil or ocote (pine). Adding a little corn syrup helps with the sticky consistency, but it can be left out if you prefer to make it the old-fashioned way. This luscious sauce is wonderful to top (warm) or swirl into ice cream, to accompany pancakes, or, better yet, to eat by the spoonful!

I believe I was about six years old when I fell in love for the first time. You see, Sundays are usually family days in Mexico, a day when brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and parents stroll around and go out to eat. My parents would often take us to restaurants that had tableside service (but they were not as fancy as you might think), and my sister Yael and I always ordered the crepas de cajeta. They were only good if they were cooked as a spectacle, because that was a big part of the deliciousness that would soon follow. We would stand way too close to the waiter and impatiently watch as the butter bubbled when it hit the pan. The cajeta was poured and a thick, gooey caramel sauce slowly melted into a silky sheet that would cover and warm the golden crepes that were folded into triangles. We begged for the spoon that inevitably had some cajeta left on it, and more often than not had fights over it. And then we would take a step back so we could watch the blue and orange flames as if they were the “poof” in a magic trick. Oh, the anticipation would make our mouths water, and although we stood still, I felt as though my heart was jumping up and down every time—I thought they were palpitations for the man who made those wonderful crepes! We would rush to our seats as he plated the crepes and would hold our forks ready to attack. Yael always asked for vanilla ice cream, and it is the ideal complement to the dessert, even though, in my opinion, they are perfect just the way they are. If you would like them with ice cream, they go very nicely with Requesón Cheese Ice Cream (page 185).

This is probably one of the most well-known Mexican desserts, even though it is believed to have Middle Eastern/Persian origins and is found throughout the world in many variations, such as coconut, almond, and orange. The heavy cream gives it a rich mouthfeel and reminds me of the raw milk found in Mexico. This dish is adapted from an old recipe I found in a cookbook without any date or author.

During my research, I visited some friends in Chihuahua. We made a family recipe for flan that required raw milk, took ten hours to bake, and sat in the fridge for two days before unmolding! It was, I have to say, the best flan I’ve ever tasted, but for practicality, I chose a recipe that doesn’t require three days of preparation—not to mention living or traveling to a state where raw milk is legal. The types of flans that exist are endless, and choosing one basic one was no easy task. I could write a whole book on flans (hey, there’s an idea!), but, inspired by the gentle patience required by the one in Chihuahua, I chose to do an old-fashioned one. Old-fashioned in the sense that I didn’t want to use any canned milk, powders, or artificial flavorings. I also wanted to make a flan that was not too eggy because that is a common complaint with these kinds of flans, so I used half-and-half instead of milk to help thicken it.

When I visited Guadalajara, I spent two whole days asking around and traveling to find the best jericallas possible. I came across a lot of misguided information and dead ends, but eventually, persistence and curiosity paid off. I found a little shop with an eggshell-colored metal wall and a tiny opening that allowed you to peek at the rectangular black oven and endless trays of individual glasses, small and large, filled with the yellowish custard. The owner didn’t share the recipe; however, she did say that although cornstarch is often used to stabilize it (and she admitted to using it when the price of eggs goes up), the best ones are made without it. Jericalla is one of my favorite desserts. It’s most commonly found in the state of Jalisco, and some say the name derives from the Valencian city of Jérica, where the recipe was brought by Spanish settlers in the eighteenth century. It is similar to flan but lighter (it can’t be unmolded), is flavored with canela, has a dark toasty sheet on top, and is eaten directly from the cooking vessel. This recipe does not refrigerate well because the topping becomes very unappealing, so it should be eaten the day you make it and at room temperature or briefly chilled.

Mamey is one of those fruits that is a dessert in itself. Its oval-shaped, light brown sandy shell hides the seductive, velvety, sweet orange flesh. It is hard to get outside of Mexico, but if you are lucky enough to find some ripe ones, make this quick and deliciously creamy dessert.

The black zapote fruit got its name because the inside pulp is actually black like mud, but don’t be put off by the unusual color because the fruit is succulent and sweet. If you are in a place where you can get them, buy the ones that feel so soft as to seem almost spoiled, because these have the best flavor. The creamy pulp blends very nicely with the fresh orange juice and is a classic combination