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Yucatán's pepita marzipan from the Conceptionist convents of Mérida, ground with sugar and agua de azahar, molded into tiny fruits and hand-painted for the Hanal Pixán altar.
This dulce is from Yucatán. Not from the central highlands, not from Puebla where the almond mazapán came over with the Spanish, but from Mérida and the surrounding towns where pumpkin seeds grew before sugar arrived and where the nuns of the Convento de la Concepción figured out, sometime in the 18th century, that pepita ground fine with sugar makes a marzipan that has nothing to envy of the European one. They called them zapotitos, little sapotes, because the women painted them to look like miniature tropical fruits.
The pepita is everything. Yucatecan pepita verde, the smooth hulled seed without the shell, raw and pale green. Toasted pepita makes pepitoria, the brown brittle candy of the mercado, and that is a different sweet. For zapotitos you keep the seed raw so the color stays the pale green of jade and the flavor stays clean. Grind it carefully. Push too far and the oils release and you have pumpkin seed butter instead of dulce. The almíbar must hit the hilo flojo, the soft ball, no further. The agua de azahar is non-negotiable. It is the perfume that tells you you are eating a Yucatecan candy and not an imitation.
My mother had no Yucatecan recipes in her notebook. Jalisco was her kitchen. I learned this one from Doña Carmen, a vendor in the Lucas de Gálvez market who has been making zapotitos for forty-three years. She paints them in her lap with a brush the size of an eyelash. The first time I made them, I rushed the drying and the paint smeared. She laughed and said, 'La paciencia también es ingrediente.' Patience is also an ingredient. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to Yucatán.
For Hanal Pixán, the Yucatec Maya day of the dead, the zapotitos sit on the altar among the candles, the photographs of the difuntos, the pib buried in the yard the day before. They are an ofrenda before they are a candy. The living eat them after. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Mazapán de pepita is documented to the convents of colonial Yucatán, most notably the Convento de la Concepción in Mérida, where Conceptionist nuns adapted the Iberian almond marzipan tradition to local ingredients beginning in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Almonds were prohibitively expensive in the peninsula, while pepita, ground for pre-Columbian Maya dishes like sikil pak for over a thousand years, was abundant; the substitution was both economic and culinary genius. The candy became fixed in Yucatecan tradition as an ofrenda for Hanal Pixán, the Yucatec Maya observance celebrated October 31 through November 2, where it is placed on the altars alongside mucbipollo, x'pelón tamales, and atole nuevo for the returning souls of the difuntos.
Quantity
2 cups
untoasted, the smooth Yucatecan kind
Quantity
2 cups
Quantity
1/4 cup
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
very finely grated
Quantity
1 pinch
Quantity
for dusting hands and surface
Quantity
small amounts in green, red, yellow, and brown
for painting the finished pieces
Quantity
about 40
for forming the stems of the zapotitos
Quantity
1
for applying color
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| raw hulled pumpkin seeds (pepita verde)untoasted, the smooth Yucatecan kind | 2 cups |
| granulated white sugar | 2 cups |
| water | 1/4 cup |
| agua de azahar (orange blossom water) | 1 tablespoon |
| fresh lime zestvery finely grated | 1/2 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | 1 pinch |
| powdered sugar | for dusting hands and surface |
| vegetable-based food coloringfor painting the finished pieces | small amounts in green, red, yellow, and brown |
| whole clovesfor forming the stems of the zapotitos | about 40 |
| small clean paintbrushfor applying color | 1 |
Spread the pumpkin seeds on a clean tray and pick through them. Discard any dark seeds, broken shells, or stray debris. The seeds must be raw and unsalted, not toasted. Toasted pepita makes a different candy, the dark-brown pepitoria of the mercado stalls, and that is not what the Conceptionists taught. For zapotitos you need the pale, smooth, green color of raw pepita ground fine.
Work the pepitas in a food processor or a sturdy spice grinder in batches of half a cup at a time. Grind until you reach a fine, slightly damp meal that holds together when pressed between your fingers. Do not push to a paste. The oils will release, the mass will turn dark, and the candy will taste of pumpkin seed butter instead of dulce. Pulse, scrape, pulse again. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
In a small heavy saucepan, combine the granulated sugar and water. Set over medium heat and stir gently until the sugar dissolves. Stop stirring and let the syrup come up to a steady simmer. Cook to the soft-ball stage, 235 to 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer, about six to eight minutes. A drop into cold water should form a soft pliable ball you can flatten between your fingers. This is the same hilo flojo the nuns of the Convento de la Concepción worked with two centuries ago.
Off the heat, immediately stir in the agua de azahar, the lime zest, and the pinch of salt. The orange blossom water is the soul of this candy. Add the ground pepita and stir with a wooden spoon until the mass comes together into a thick, dense, pale-green dough. It will look dry at first. Keep working it. The heat of the syrup will pull the oils out of the seeds and bind everything in about a minute.
Turn the warm mass out onto a clean work surface lightly dusted with powdered sugar. Once it is cool enough to handle, knead with the heels of your hands for three to four minutes, until the dough is smooth, pliable, and the color of pistachio. If it feels sticky, dust with a little more powdered sugar. If it feels dry and cracked, wet your hands and keep kneading. Wrap in plastic and rest at room temperature for thirty minutes.
Pinch off pieces the size of a small walnut, about two teaspoons each. Roll each into a smooth round ball between your palms, then taper one end slightly so it has the shape of a small sapote, a mango, or a tiny mamey. Press a whole clove into the top for a stem. The señoras at the Lucas de Gálvez market shape them in their laps while they talk to customers, never looking down. You will be slower the first time. That is fine.
Set the shaped zapotitos on a tray lined with parchment, spaced apart so they do not touch. Let them sit uncovered at room temperature for at least four hours, ideally overnight. The surface needs to firm up before you paint. If you brush color onto a soft mazapán, the paint sinks in and smears. Patience is the recipe.
Thin a few drops of each food color with a drop of water in a small dish. Using a clean fine brush, paint each zapotito to resemble the fruit it represents: blushes of red and yellow for mango, a dab of brown at the stem for sapote, deep green for limón. Keep it simple and uneven. These are dulces de abuela, not pastry-shop showpieces. The slight irregularity is part of why they belong on a Hanal Pixán altar and not in a glass case. Así se hace y punto.
Let the painted zapotitos dry uncovered for another hour until the color sets dull and matte. Arrange them on a Talavera platter or a wooden bandeja. For Hanal Pixán, set them on the altar among the candles, the papel picado, the pib, and the photographs. They are meant to be eaten by the living after the difuntos have taken their share of the aroma.
1 serving (about 19g)
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