Morelia Cajeta Wafers (Morelianas de Cajeta)

Michoacán, Morelia, the old Valladolid city in the Guayangareo valley, owns this sweet. Morelianas de cajeta are not candy from a factory shelf. They are thin wheat obleas holding a layer of goat-milk cajeta, the kind you see stacked in market stalls near ate de membrillo, chongos, cocadas, and sugar figures before Christmas.

The ingredient that defines the dish is cajeta made with goat milk. Not condensed milk. Not a jar of caramel sauce. Goat milk cooks down with sugar, piloncillo, and Mexican cinnamon until it turns copper and smells like the inside of a dulcería. The wafer is plain on purpose: wheat flour, water, egg white, a little manteca. It exists to carry the cajeta without competing with it.

I learned this version from a woman near the Mercado Independencia in Morelia who made the wafers before dawn because the afternoon humidity ruins them. She kept the finished morelianas in a tin lined with paper and told me, 'The wafer listens to the weather.' She was right. Make these on a dry day if you can. If not, work quickly and store them well.

No chile here. No salsa. No performance. This is Mexican food too, because this is a 32-state cuisine and Michoacán has always known how to handle sugar, milk, wheat, fruit, and patience. Cada estado, su propia cocina.