Guatemalan Dessert Favorites

Molletes

Guatemalans seem to make the very best use of any ingredient, and that includes using unlikely things to make into desserts. Take Plantains. They are used green as a "vegetable" side dish; medium-ripe, simply cooked, they are perfect as a side with black beans; really ripe and fried are great on their own for dessert and then comes magic. They are used sweet as Plantains in Mole Sauce for an amazing flavor sensation. Or used for Rellenitos de Platano, those amazing little fried ovals of pureed plantain with a surprise inside!

This magic is also done with homely yucca root, or squash (not too surprising as we do have Pumpkin Pie). And then bread. Bread, you ask? Well, I do love bread pudding, so I guess it's no surprise that I have always loved a dessert they call Molletes en Dulce. Molletes (pronounced "moy-YET-ez") are a particular type of bread from the Guatemalan "sweet bread/roll" panoply. An enriched bread, with a little sugar, shortening and eggs, these are delicious all on their own, smeared with a little butter and eaten with coffee or with black beans, or however/whenever you choose. And then as inevitably will happen, if they are somehow left over, rather than let them go stale and thrown out, they are turned into dessert. 

Pan Frances or French Bread

Now, a caveat. In all the 12 years I spent in Guatemala, I never, ever had Molletes en Dulce made with actual Molletes! Instead, and likely because it was more common for the "Pan Frances (their French Breads) to be left over than the Molletes, the cook made this same recipe but using the portions of Pan Frances instead. It was delicious, and a favorite dessert. Just not made with Molletes. Confusing to me at the time. 

Since in the U.S. we do not have this kind of Pan Frances, with its individually marked portions, I have made similar use of a narrow loaf of French bread, cutting it into chunks of like size, about 2 x 2 x 3-inches, approximately. Hollow out a core of the bread and fill with thick cream and raisins and proceed. It works. It's really good. But when I made Molletes last November, I decided at long last to make Molletes en Dulce. WITH Molletes!

Molletes en Dulce

Molletes en Dulce

Serves 6

1¾ cups sugar
2½ cups water
1 (4-inch) piece true cinnamon
6 molletes or other breads, about 1 to 2 ounces each, slightly dried
½ cup Mexican cream, or sour cream
18 raisins
2 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon flour
1 - 2 tablespoons oil or shortening for frying
slivered almonds, to adorn

In a large, wide pot, bring the first 3 ingredients to boil, lower to simmer and cook gently for about 20 to 30 minutes.

If actually using molletes, take out a piece from the top of each, creating a little

Cutt center from Mollete

lid, and widen the hole inside the bread. Divide cream between the wells, insert 3 raisins in each and then set the lid back on. If using French bread chunks, cut a slice into the bread, widening the hole as needed to insert the cream. Set 3 raisins into the cream.

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Separately, whip the egg yolks until they are pale yellow and drip down in ribbons from the beater or whisk. Fold the yolks into the whites, and then fold in about a tablespoon of flour to give body to the mixture.

Dip each filled piece of bread into the beaten egg mixture, till completely covered, and then fry these on all sides in the shortening in a large frying pan, turning to get the egg done on all sides. When completely fried, and thus sealed, set them gently into the simmering syrup. Gently simmer the molletes in the syrup for 20 - 30 minutes or longer. Serve adorned with almonds.

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Another use for leftover "sweet (enriched) breads" was called Boca de Reina, or Bocado de Reina. While I never once saw this dessert made anywhere but in a pastry shop, it was still one I completely fell in love with. The name means something like "A Queen's Bite or a Queen's Snack." A snack fit for a Queen would be another way to term this dessert. In the 1970s, when I was in Guatemala, my husband took me to this one pastry shop occasionally for a little sweet bite and often this was my choice. At that time, in that pastry shop, this dessert was a piece of cake that was amazingly good. Moist and tender, subtly flavored. I couldn't put a finger on what might be in it. I asked, and was told it was a cake made from leftover breads, made into crumbs. 

I returned to the U.S. once and for all in the early 1980s. Never once did I have this dessert again, nor ever heard of it anywhere, and pretty soon it was completely gone from memory.

Until.

When my oldest daughter was turning 40, I created a "Cookbook/Memoir" of all things Guatemalan that I could recall. All my children were born there, though the youngest, 3 years old at the time, remembers nothing of it. The oldest, at 10, remembered well. I found photos online of places we'd been and foods she'd known, recipes I had made and some I hadn't but still held on to. It was great. And then my son was turning 40 a few years ago, and while what I made for my daughter was good at the time, I had a LOT of new ideas and recipes I recalled while researching others, many I had actually tried out since that first book came to be. And this Bocado de Reina came into my mind. I searched online for a recipe, at least an idea. The ONLY thing that comes up when searching Guatemalan recipes and Bocado de Reina is some kind of banana bread/pudding.

I can say with 100% certainty, the Bocado de Reina I ate at that pastry shop, did NOT have bananas in it. 

My memory said that it was a darkish color, but not dark like chocolate cake. The cake had a wonderful, moist crumb. It was served cut into a square and set on a muffin paper to display. As I said, the flavors were elusive. 

Okay, so the one thing I knew was that it was made (at that pastry shop) with crumbs of day-old bread. And if that was the "flour", then I would just have to add in other cake-like ingredients. But what gave it the dark color? I know that chocolate was also not a flavor that I can recall from that cake. Yet. . . I wondered if using a small amount of Guatemalan / Mexican chocolate tablets, such as Ibarra or Abuelita, pre-sweetened and with cinnamon in them, maybe I could get this cake to have more color, while t the same time without it actually tasting of chocolate. I had just been making some of the Guatemalan breads, testing them out to see what I could use for recipes in my son's version of the Guatemalan Cookbook / Memoir. I had some leftover Molletes and Rosquitas. I went to work. 

Bocado de Reina

At a remove of 32 years from the last possible time I might have eaten this cake, I made my own version. I cannot in any way say for certain that this tastes perfectly of the Bocado de Reina I ate long years ago in Guatemala, but it fit all my remembered criteria, and it truly tastes fabulous. While maybe not 100% Guatemalan, here is my Bocado de Reina:

Bocado de Reina

Bocado de Reina

Makes one 9 x 9 cake

1½ cups (12 ounces) heavy cream
1 cup (7.3 ounces) sugar
1/3 cup (1.7 ounces) sweetened Mexican or Guatemalan chocolate, finely grated
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon true cinnamon (Ceylon, or Mexican)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
¾ cup (3.5 ounces) raisins
3 cups (8.35 ounces) “day old” enriched bread, made into crumbs
¼ cup (1.16 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (0.18 ounces) baking powder

Make bread crumbs from rich breads such as brioche, molletes, wafer cookies, animal crackers or a combination. They should not all be completely dried out. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9-inch baking dish; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the cream, sugar, chocolate, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and eggs. Add in the raisins and bread crumbs and allow to soak for a few minutes. Stir together the flour and baking powder and stir in. Pour the batter into the baking dish and bake for about 40 to 50 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out almost clean. A few remaining crumbs are okay. Cool completely. Dust the top with confectioners’ sugar if desired. 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Molletes are a Well Known Guatemalan Bread

I lived in Guatemala for 12 years, in the 1970s and earliest '80s. I understand a lot has changed in the years since then, but my memories of that time are clear. The bread in Guatemala was unlike anything I had ever seen in my 20 years prior to moving there. They had "French Bread" or "Pan Frances". this was the main, unsweetened bread. Aside from this, and the ubiquitous corn tortillas, there were what were called either Pan Dulce ("sweet bread") or Pan de Manteca (a bread made with shortening or butter or lard) These sweet/shortening type breads were so many and so varied that it is hard to even describe them. I do not recall the names of all of them. I wrote a little of this in a recent blog of December 8, 2014.

Molletes

What is a Mollete?

Mollete is pronounced "moh-YET-tay". The double "LL" in the middle is pronounced as "Y". Molletes, one of the "Panes de Manteca", or sweet/enriched breads, are small, individual sized rounded breads, vaguely sweet, and most often seen with a little mound of some sort of sugary substance stuck on the top. These little breads are excellent with beans and coffee for breakfast, or at any time of day. Great in the afternoon with coffee (or tea) as a snack, also. The bread is rich, soft inside, but with some substance. Aside from just eating them on the day they are made, once leftover, they become dry and crumbly. Guatemalans rarely waste foods, so once the bread becomes dried out, it becomes the basis for other things. 

Molletes with egg and beans for breakfast

Molletes are also used to create a dessert called "Molletes". Confusing? I suppose. Sometimes this dessert is distinguished by calling it Molletes en Dulce, meaning they are made into a "sweet". This dessert is a specialty around Holy Week before Easter, but it can be made at any time. To make the dessert, the top is cut off the breads, a little of the bread is scooped out and filled in with cream, or cornstarch custard. The little "lid" is placed back on top, and the whole bread is coated in very well beaten eggs, fluffy and light. They are then fried, so no raw egg remains and they are sealed shut, and then slipped into a large pot of simmering sugar syrup, flavored with cinnamon and raisins and allowed to absorb this liquid. These were a most delectable treat, and one fantastic way to use leftover bread. On occasion, something similar is done with other types of bread. I have made them with French bread, cut into 2-inch cubes. 

Molletes, served

Recently I made another of the Guatemalan sweet breads, called Champurradas (recipe in the same blog as noted above), which are like a large, not very sweet cookie. Since most of these breads are made only at the bakeries found everywhere, no one makes them at home. Hence, no recipes. It is very hard to replicate a bread I ate over 40 years ago, with no recipe to at least give some approximation of what is used. One of the breads I most wish I had some kind of recipe for is one my ex-husband said are called Shecas. These, at least in Guatemala City where I lived, were not a totally white variety of bread, but I don't know if whole wheat was used or the color comes from another source. The bread was denser than the molletes. Anise seeds were in the bread, but not in abundance, so when you took a bite, it was hit or miss to actually taste a seed. When the anise seed did make its presence known, it was sort of a joyous feeling of satisfaction; triumph. And, these Shecas were wonderful when eating black beans. I so wish I had some idea of the ingredients.

I have been trying to make as many Guatemalan foods as possible, in order to get the photos to use in the cookbook/memoir I am still working on. I made the molletes just after Christmas, and have a bunch of them frozen. Eating them brings back a flood of taste memories, so I must have hit close to how the recipe should be made. Here is what I did:

Molletes

 Makes 2 dozen

BREAD: In a bowl, whisk together 2 cups of the flour with the sugar, yeast, baking powder and salt. Separately, combine the milk, eggs and vanilla. If the eggs do not make at least ½ cup, you may need a little more milk to mix the dough properly. Mix the lard or shortening into the dry ingredients briefly, then pour in the liquid mixture. Stir well, then add int he remaining flour and knead for about 15 or more minutes, or until the dough passes the windowpane test. For the windowpane test: take a small piece of the dough and stretch between the fingers until it will stretch thin enough to see light through (a "windowpane") without tearing. Grease a large bowl and scrape the dough into the bowl, turning once to grease both sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 to ½ hours.

Turn the dough out onto a greased surface. Cut the dough into 24 equal balls, approximately 1½ ounces apiece. Form each portion of the dough into a nice, tight little ball and set well apart (about 3-inches between) on greased baking sheets. 

Size of the dough balls; placement on baking sheet, and baked Molletes

TOPPING: Mix together the three ingredients as for a streusel, though this will be far stickier. Moisten the top of each little bread ball with water, then place a scant ½ teaspoon of the topping mixture on each, spreading and flattening the mixture with moist fingers. Set the breads aside to rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size, about 45 minutes to an hour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake the breads for about 12 minutes, to an internal temperature of 105 to 200 degrees, until golden, rotating the sheets once halfway through baking time for even browning.

My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.