Bizcochos de Manteca Yucatecos

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Two heavy baking sheets
• •Parchment paper
• •Pastry cutter or two table knives
• •2-inch round cutter or sharp knife
• •Pastry brush
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Heat the oven and prepare the pans

   Heat the oven to 350F. Line two heavy baking sheets with parchment. The pans should be heavy. Thin sheets scorch the bottoms of bizcochos before the centers set, and a burned bizcocho is a wasted bizcocho.

2. 2

   Combine the dry ingredients

   In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until evenly mixed. The salt is not optional. It is what keeps the sweetness from going flat and what makes the lard taste like itself instead of like a blank cushion.

3. 3

   Cut in the manteca

   Add the cold lard in spoonfuls scattered across the flour. Work it in with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture looks like coarse sand with a few pea-sized lumps still visible. Those lumps are what give the bizcocho its crumb. La manteca es el sabor. Use good lard. The kind in the green tub at the back of the supermarket aisle is not good lard. Render your own or buy it from a carniceria.

   Work fast and keep your hands cool. If the lard warms up and disappears into the flour, you have made cake batter, not bizcochos. The little lumps melt in the oven and leave pockets of richness.
4. 4

   Mix the wet ingredients

   In a small bowl, whisk the two eggs with the milk and vanilla until uniform. Pour the wet mixture into the flour and lard. Stir with a wooden spoon just until a shaggy dough forms. Stop the moment the flour disappears. Overworking the dough develops the gluten and gives you tough bizcochos. No me vengas con atajos and do not abuse the dough either.

5. 5

   Bring the dough together

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Press it together gently with the heel of your hand, fold it over once, and press again. Two or three folds, no more. The dough should hold but still look a little rough at the edges. Smooth, pretty dough is the wrong dough.

6. 6

   Shape the bizcochos

   Pat the dough into a slab about 3/4 inch thick. Cut it into rounds with a 2-inch cutter, or into squares with a sharp knife if you do not have one. The señoras in Mérida do not always own cookie cutters. A knife and a steady hand will do. Gather the scraps, pat them out once more, and cut again. After the second cut, the third pass will be tougher. Bake those as the cook's portion.

7. 7

   Brush and sugar

   Arrange the bizcochos on the lined sheets with about an inch between them. Brush the tops with the egg wash. Sprinkle a small pinch of granulated sugar over each one. The sugar crackles on top in the oven and gives the bizcocho its signature finish. Yucatecan home cooks have done it this way for generations. Así se hace y punto.

8. 8

   Bake until deeply golden

   Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the tops are deeply golden and the bottoms are firm and bronzed. Pale bizcochos are underbaked bizcochos. You want color on top, color underneath, and a crumb that holds together when you tear one open. Let them cool on the pan for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

9. 9

   Serve the yucateco way

   Eat them warm with strong coffee or hot chocolate. In Mérida, they appear at breakfast, at merienda in the late afternoon, and on the table when family arrives. The bizcocho is not a fancy pastry. It is a working pastry from a working cuisine. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Use the best lard you can find. The pale, neutral block lard sold in supermarkets is hydrogenated and tastes like nothing. Look for fresh rendered lard at a Mexican carniceria, or render your own from pork fatback. The flavor difference is the entire dish.
• •Cold ingredients matter. Cold lard, cold milk, cold eggs. Warm dough spreads in the oven and loses the crumb. If your kitchen is hot, chill the cut bizcochos on the sheet pan for ten minutes before baking.
• •These freeze well unbaked. Cut, arrange on a sheet pan, freeze solid, then transfer to a bag. Bake straight from frozen and add five minutes to the time. A Yucatecan kitchen always has a stash ready for unexpected visitors.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be mixed and shaped one day ahead. Arrange the cut bizcochos on a parchment-lined sheet, cover loosely, and refrigerate. Brush with egg wash and bake straight from the refrigerator, adding two or three minutes to the baking time.
• •Cut, unbaked bizcochos freeze for up to two months. Bake from frozen with five extra minutes in the oven.
• •Baked bizcochos keep in a tin at room temperature for three days. They are best the day they are baked, but a stale bizcocho dipped in hot chocolate is still a fine thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 51g)