Chef Lupita
Almendrados Conventuales Poblanos
Puebla's convent almond cookies, made from blanched almonds, sugar syrup, egg yolks, canela, and patient hands, the kind of sweet that belongs beside coffee in talavera, not in a plastic bakery box.
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Bizcochos de Manteca Poblanos
Created by
Puebla's holiday bizcochos are lard-rich flour biscuits scented with canela and anise, pressed into thick discs, sugared while warm, and made for chocolate, atole, and Noche Buena tables.
Pastries & Cookies
Mexican
Christmas
Holiday
Make Ahead
30 min
Active Time
18 min cook•1 hr 48 min total
Yield28 to 32 bizcochos
Puebla, in the central highlands between volcanoes and convent walls, owns these bizcochos de manteca. This is a flour pastry, not a corn antojito, and that matters. Puebla's colonial kitchens took wheat, sugar, canela, anise, and manteca de cerdo and turned them into holiday baking with a very specific crumb: tender, sandy, and strong enough to dip into chocolate caliente without collapsing like a weak cookie.
I first wrote this version after watching a señora near the Mercado de Sabores in Puebla measure lard with her fingers, not a scale. She knew the dough by touch. It should feel soft but not greasy, like masa that has learned to behave as pastry. The manteca is not decoration here. La manteca es el sabor. Use butter and you have made another biscuit. Use shortening and you have removed the point.
These are for Noche Buena, posadas, and the days when a house needs something that keeps well in a tin. The canela and anise do the perfume work, the sugar gives a dry sparkle, and the lard gives that clean break under the teeth. No me vengas con atajos. Cream the manteca properly, rest the dough, and bake them pale gold. Así se hace y punto.
Puebla's convent kitchens became major centers of Mexican pastry during the 17th and 18th centuries, when wheat flour, cane sugar, cinnamon, anise, and pork lard from Spanish colonial foodways met Indigenous household labor and local technique. Bizcochos de manteca belong to that colonial baking tradition, closer to the practical convent biscuit than to modern frosted cookies. In Puebla, they remain tied to Christmas and posada tables because they keep well, travel well, and pair naturally with chocolate de metate or atole.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
all-purpose flour
Quantity
3 cups, plus more for dusting
baking powder
Quantity
1 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
ground canela de Ceylan or Mexican cinnamon
Quantity
1 teaspoon
anise seed
Quantity
1 teaspoon
lightly crushed
fresh pork lard (manteca de cerdo)
Quantity
1 cup
at cool room temperature
granulated sugar
Quantity
3/4 cup
large egg yolks
Quantity
2
at room temperature
large whole egg
Quantity
1
at room temperature
fresh orange juice
Quantity
2 tablespoons
orange zest
Quantity
1 teaspoon
finely grated
vanilla extract
Quantity
1 teaspoon
granulated sugar for coating
Quantity
1/3 cup
ground canela de Ceylan or Mexican cinnamon for coating
Quantity
1 teaspoon
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-purpose flour | 3 cups, plus more for dusting |
| baking powder | 1 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | 1/2 teaspoon |
| ground canela de Ceylan or Mexican cinnamon | 1 teaspoon |
| anise seedlightly crushed | 1 teaspoon |
| fresh pork lard (manteca de cerdo)at cool room temperature | 1 cup |
| granulated sugar | 3/4 cup |
| large egg yolksat room temperature | 2 |
| large whole eggat room temperature | 1 |
| fresh orange juice | 2 tablespoons |
| orange zestfinely grated | 1 teaspoon |
| vanilla extract | 1 teaspoon |
| granulated sugar for coating | 1/3 cup |
| ground canela de Ceylan or Mexican cinnamon for coating | 1 teaspoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Large mixing bowl and wooden spoon
- •Molcajete or mortar for lightly crushing anise seed
- •Rolling pin or your hands for shaping
- •2 baking sheets
- •Wire cooling rack
Instructions
- 1
Mix the dry base
Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, ground canela, and crushed anise seed in a bowl. Crush the anise lightly between your fingers or in a molcajete first. You want it awake, not powdered into dust.
- 2
Cream the manteca
In a large bowl, beat the manteca de cerdo with the 3/4 cup sugar for 4 to 5 minutes, until lighter in color and soft like thick cream. This is where the texture is built. If the lard is cold, it will clump. If it is melted, the dough will turn heavy. Cool room temperature is the point.
- 3
Add the eggs
Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, then the whole egg. Add the orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. The mixture may look slightly broken for a moment. Keep beating until it comes back together and smells of canela, citrus, and lard. That smell is Puebla's holiday table starting to speak.
- 4
Bring the dough together
Add the dry ingredients in two additions, mixing with a wooden spoon or your hand just until no dry flour remains. Do not knead it like bread. This dough should be tender. Press it together, cover the bowl, and rest it for 45 minutes at room temperature so the flour hydrates and the anise settles into the fat.
If the dough feels greasy, add 1 tablespoon flour. If it cracks badly when pressed, add 1 teaspoon orange juice. Small corrections, not panic. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado, they adjust by touch. - 5
Shape the bizcochos
Heat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Roll the dough on a lightly floured table to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 2 1/2-inch rounds, or pinch off walnut-size pieces and press them into thick discs with your palm. They should look handmade, not factory-perfect.
- 6
Bake pale gold
Arrange the discs 1 inch apart. Bake 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the bottoms are lightly golden and the tops stay pale. Do not chase brown color. A dark bizcocho tastes dry and tired. The lard should leave the crumb tender, not crisp like a cracker.
- 7
Sugar while warm
Stir the 1/3 cup sugar with the teaspoon of ground canela. Let the bizcochos cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then roll them gently in the cinnamon sugar while still warm. Warm cookies catch the sugar. Cold ones reject it. Let them finish cooling on a rack before storing.
- 8
Serve with chocolate
Serve at room temperature with chocolate caliente, atole de vainilla, or cafe de olla. These are not frosted cookies and they do not need decoration. The crumb, the manteca, the canela, and the anise are the work. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •Buy fresh manteca de cerdo from a butcher or a good Mexican market. It should smell clean and faintly sweet, never stale. Supermarket shelf-stable lard works only if it is not hydrogenated. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Use Mexican canela, the soft Ceylon cinnamon that breaks easily, not hard cassia sticks if you can avoid them. Puebla's sweets lean on that warm, gentle canela, not an aggressive cinnamon burn.
- •The dough can be shaped by hand instead of rolled. Many home cooks do it that way because the palm leaves a small unevenness that catches the sugar. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.
- •Do not add chile. Not every Mexican dish has chile. This is a Puebla pastry from the flour, sugar, lard, and convent-baking side of the state. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
Advance Preparation
- •The dough can be mixed and refrigerated up to 24 hours ahead. Let it sit at room temperature until pliable before rolling or pressing.
- •Baked bizcochos keep 5 to 6 days in a tightly closed tin at room temperature. Their texture is best after the first day, when the canela and anise have settled into the crumb.
- •Freeze the shaped unbaked discs on a tray, then store in a sealed bag for up to 1 month. Bake from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 29g)
Calories
140 calories
Total Fat
7 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
25 mg
Sodium
60 mg
Total Carbohydrates
17 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
7 g
Protein
2 g
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