Buñuelos Oaxaqueños con Miel de Piloncillo

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide heavy skillet or comal hondo for frying
• •Cloth-covered overturned bowl or sobadora for stretching
• •Heavy saucepan for the miel
• •Wire rack set over a sheet pan
• •Frying thermometer
• •Long slotted spoon or kitchen spider

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the dough

   Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a wide bowl. Make a well in the center. Pour in the beaten eggs, the melted lard, the warm milk, and the anisado. Mix with your hand or a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. If it feels dry, add warm milk a tablespoon at a time. The dough should hold together but not stick to your palm. La manteca es el sabor, even here. Do not substitute butter. The lard gives the buñuelo the snap it needs when it hits the hot oil.

   Anisado is the workhorse of Oaxacan repostería. If you cannot find it, steep a tablespoon of anise seed in two tablespoons of boiling water for ten minutes and use the strained liquid. Skip the anise and you have a generic fried disc, not a buñuelo oaxaqueño.
2. 2

   Knead until smooth

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for about eight minutes. Push, fold, turn. The dough will start out rough and end smooth, elastic, and the color of pale wheat. When you press it with a finger, the dent should spring back slowly. Wrap it in a clean cloth and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. The rest is not optional. The gluten needs to relax or your buñuelos will fight you when you try to stretch them thin.

3. 3

   Cook the miel de piloncillo

   While the dough rests, combine the piloncillo, water, canela, anise seed, orange peel, cloves, and guava if using in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir until the piloncillo dissolves completely. Lower the heat and let it bubble gently for 20 to 25 minutes until the syrup coats the back of a spoon and runs off in a slow ribbon. Strain out the spices and pour the miel into a wide bowl. The syrup should taste like spiced caramel with a deep anise hum. Asi se hace y punto.

   Real piloncillo, the dark cone you crack open with a knife, is not the same as brown sugar. Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added back. Piloncillo is unrefined cane that carries minerals, smoke, and the memory of the trapiche it was pressed in. No me vengas con atajos.
4. 4

   Divide and stretch

   Divide the rested dough into 18 equal balls, about the size of a small lime. Cover with a damp cloth so they do not dry out. Working one at a time, roll each ball on a lightly floured surface into a thin disc, about 7 to 8 inches across. Now lift it. Drape it over the back of your hands or over a clean cloth-covered overturned bowl, and gently pull from the edges with your fingertips until you can almost see through it. The traditional method in the Centro Histórico is to stretch the buñuelo over the cook's bare knee covered in a cloth. You can stretch it on a cloth-covered round bowl. The discs do not have to be perfectly round. Imperfect edges are the signature of hand-stretched buñuelos.

5. 5

   Heat the frying fat

   Pour the lard or oil into a wide heavy skillet to a depth of about one inch. Heat over medium-high until it reaches 360 to 375°F. Test it with a small scrap of dough: it should rise and bubble immediately, turning gold in 20 seconds. If the fat is too cool, the buñuelo absorbs grease and goes limp. If it is too hot, the outside burns before the inside cooks through.

6. 6

   Fry to amber

   Slide one stretched disc into the hot fat. It will balloon and puff in spots within seconds. Use the back of a slotted spoon or a long fork to baste hot fat over the top, then flip after about 30 seconds. The second side cooks even faster, maybe 20 seconds. Pull the buñuelo when it is the color of dark amber, the color of the piloncillo syrup itself. Drain on a wire rack set over a sheet pan, never on paper towels. Paper traps the steam underneath and softens what should be brittle.

   The buñuelo should crackle when you tap it. If it bends, the fat was too cool or you fried it too briefly. There is no fixing a soft buñuelo. Adjust the heat and try again with the next disc.
7. 7

   Drown and serve

   Set each finished buñuelo in a wide shallow bowl, traditionally a barro rojo plate from Atzompa. Ladle the warm miel de piloncillo generously over the top until the buñuelo sits in a small pool of syrup. The crisp wheat will start to drink the miel at the edges and stay snappy at the center. Eat immediately, with your hands. In Oaxaca, on Christmas Eve, the tradition in Jardín Sócrates is that after you finish, you smash the clay plate on the cobblestones for good luck in the year to come. Save your good plates. Use the working ones.

Chef Tips

• •The thinness of the dough is what separates a real buñuelo oaxaqueño from a thick disc of fried bread. Stretch until you can see the shadow of your hand through it. Tears are acceptable. Thickness is not.
• •Piloncillo varies by region. The dark cones from Veracruz and Michoacan are deeper and more molasses-heavy. The lighter cones from Jalisco are gentler. Either works, but taste your syrup before you commit and adjust with another piece of piloncillo or another stick of canela if it tastes flat.
• •Fry in lard if you can. The flavor difference is real and the buñuelo crisps differently. Vegetable oil works and is what most home cooks in Oaxaca use today, but the old recipes called for manteca and there is a reason.
• •These do not keep. The buñuelo softens within hours of being syruped. Fry the discs ahead and store them in a paper bag at room temperature for up to a day. Make the miel ahead and reheat it. Combine only at serving.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made up to four hours ahead and held at room temperature wrapped in a clean cloth. Past four hours, refrigerate and bring back to room temperature before stretching.
• •The miel de piloncillo keeps refrigerated for two weeks and reheats easily. The flavor deepens overnight as the spices continue to infuse.
• •Fry the buñuelos up to 24 hours ahead and store them in a single layer in a paper bag at room temperature. Never in plastic. Plastic traps moisture and the buñuelo turns leathery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 165g)