Marquesote Oaxaqueño

Marquesote belongs to Oaxaca. Not Mexico generally. Oaxaca. You find it in the dulcerias around the Centro Historico, in the comedor stalls at the 20 de Noviembre market, and on the table at every serious life event in a Oaxacan family: a wedding, a baptism, a quinceañera, the nine days of a velorio when the chocolate keeps coming and the people keep arriving. This is a celebration cake and a mourning cake at the same time, which is very Oaxacan.

The recipe came down through the convents. Spanish nuns brought European sponge-cake technique with them in the 17th century, and the women of Oaxaca took it apart and rebuilt it. Wheat flour cut with cornstarch, eggs whipped separately to push the volume as high as it will go, the whole thing baked until it is dry, almost biscuity. Outside Oaxaca, this would read as a flaw. In Oaxaca, it is the whole engineering of the dish. A dry sponge soaks up hot chocolate without collapsing. A wet sponge dissolves in your cup like a tragedy.

The senora at Jardín Sócrates who taught me her version watched me beat the yolks for two minutes and stopped me. 'Otros cinco,' she said. Five more. Then she watched me fold and slowed my hand down. The marquesote does not forgive a heavy hand or a short attention span. It is a cake of patience and air. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one is Oaxaca's reply to anyone who thinks Mexican baking begins and ends with tres leches.