Highland Sweet Gorditas de Horno

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide mixing bowl
• •Molcajete or mortar for cracking anise
• •Heavy baking sheet or baking stone
• •Clean cotton servilleta for covering the dough
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Crush the anise

   Put the anise seed in a molcajete or mortar and crack it lightly. Do not grind it to dust. You want small broken seeds that release their perfume when the gorditas bake. In the Altos, that smell belongs to morning bread and cafe de olla.

2. 2

   Mix the dry base

   In a wide bowl, whisk together the harina de trigo, harina de maiz nixtamalizado, sugar, grated piloncillo, baking powder, salt, crushed anise, and cinnamon. Break up any piloncillo clumps with your fingers. The corn flour gives the crumb its dry, sandy bite. Without it, you are making a sweet biscuit, not a gordita de horno.

3. 3

   Work in the lard

   Add the manteca de cerdo and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse meal with a few pea-size pieces left. La manteca es el sabor. It shortens the dough and gives the gordita that crumbly texture made for dunking. Vegetable shortening will make it flatter in flavor. Now you know.

4. 4

   Bring the dough together

   Beat the eggs, warm milk, and vanilla in a small bowl. Pour them into the flour mixture and mix with your hand until a soft, slightly tacky dough forms. If dry flour remains at the bottom, add milk one tablespoon at a time. Do not knead hard. This dough should come together, not build strength like bolillo dough.

5. 5

   Rest the dough

   Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let the dough rest 1 hour at room temperature. This is not a fermented bread and it does not use masa madre or the Guadalajara pata. That belongs to birote, and birote is a sourdough, not a bolillo. Here the rest lets the harina de maiz hydrate and the anise settle into the fat.

6. 6

   Shape the gorditas

   Heat the oven to 375F. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven while it heats. Divide the dough into 18 pieces, about 45 grams each. Roll each piece into a ball, then pat it into a thick round about 3 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick. They should look handmade, not machine-perfect. Press the center lightly with your palm so the edges stay a little thicker.

7. 7

   Score and sugar

   Set the rounds on parchment-lined baking sheets. Score the tops with three shallow slashes using a small knife, then sprinkle with the finishing sugar. The cuts help the tops crack in a controlled way. A panadera in Tepatitlan showed me this with the back of a knife before sunrise, working faster than I could write. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.

8. 8

   Bake until dry

   Bake 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the bottoms are golden and the tops are pale with light cracks. They should not be soft like conchas. They should feel firm at the edges and smell of toasted wheat, corn, lard, and anise. If using a horno de leña, bake after the fire has been swept out and the floor has settled to bread heat, not blazing pizza heat.

9. 9

   Cool completely

   Move the gorditas to a rack and let them cool completely before eating. Warm, they taste doughy. Cool, the crumb sets and turns dry in the correct way. Serve with cafe de olla, champurrado, or plain hot milk. These are made to be dunked. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Use fresh manteca de cerdo from a butcher or Mexican market if you can. Supermarket lard often tastes stale or has been processed until it has no character. La manteca es el sabor.
• •The harina de maiz should be nixtamalized masa harina, not raw cornmeal. Cornmeal gives grit. Masa harina gives the right corn aroma and a finer crumb.
• •These gorditas are meant to be dry. Do not underbake them trying to make them soft. Soft is wrong here. The dunk in cafe de olla finishes the bite.
• •Piloncillo adds depth, but the main sweetness is plain sugar in many highland kitchens because it dissolves cleanly and keeps the crumb pale. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •If your anise seed smells like nothing, buy new anise. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado. They know which vendor moves spices quickly.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be mixed, covered, and refrigerated overnight. Let it sit at room temperature 30 minutes before shaping so the lard softens.
• •Baked gorditas keep 4 to 5 days in a cloth-lined tin or basket. Do not seal them while warm or the crust turns soft.
• •They freeze well after baking. Rewarm in a 300F oven for 8 minutes, then cool a few minutes so the crumb firms again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 47g)