Chef Lupita
Besitos Yucatecos
Mérida's pale egg-yolk-and-vanilla kisses, tiny cookies built on eight yolks and a perfume of orange blossom, sandwiched with guava paste and dusted heavy with powdered sugar.
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Orejas Yucatecas
Created by
Yucatecan palmiers from the panaderias of Merida and Valladolid, rolled in sugar, folded into ears, and baked until the surface turns to amber glass that breaks apart at the first bite.
Pastries & Cookies
Mexican
Make Ahead
Comfort Food
Weeknight
30 min
Active Time
20 min cook•50 min total
YieldAbout 24 orejas
Orejas are from the panaderias of Yucatan. Not from Paris. The French built the puff pastry, yes, but the Yucatecos took it, rolled it in sugar instead of flour, and made it a daily bread that sits in glass cases in Merida next to the conchas, the polvorones, and the marquesitas. Walk into any panaderia in the centro of Merida or Valladolid in the late afternoon and you will smell caramelized sugar before you see the shelves.
This is a laminated pastry but it is not a French exercise. The technique is simple and the ingredients are three. What separates a good oreja from a bad one is the sugar. You roll the dough on sugar, you fold the dough with sugar, you press more sugar into the slices before they go into the oven. The sugar is what caramelizes into the glassy amber crust that breaks apart under your teeth. Skip the sugar at any step and you will pull a sad, pale pastry out of the oven. La manteca es el sabor in most of Mexican cooking, but here, the azucar is the sabor.
The Yucatecan touch is the canela, the soft Mexican cinnamon that the panaderos in Merida often work into the sugar. It is subtle, almost not there, and that is the point. It tells you the oreja came from a Yucatecan kitchen and not a European one. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Yucatan claimed this pastry as its own a long time ago.
My mother used to buy orejas from a panaderia on Avenida Alvaro Obregon in Colonia Roma every Saturday morning. The baker was from Merida and he made them the Yucatecan way, with the canela and with the heavy sugar. We ate them with cafe de olla and she would say they fell apart cleaner than the ones from any of the fancy bakeries in Polanco. She was right. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and saber comer is part of the same lesson.
Orejas, palmiers in French and palmeras in much of Spain, arrived in Mexico through the wave of European bakers who settled in port cities and capitals during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly during the Porfiriato when French culinary influence was at its peak. Yucatan, with its long history of maritime trade through the port of Progreso and its cultural openness to Caribbean, Cuban, and European exchange, absorbed the technique and transformed it into a staple of the regional panaderia tradition, often distinguished from versions elsewhere in Mexico by the addition of Mexican canela. The pastry now sits firmly within Yucatan's pan dulce repertoire alongside indigenous-Spanish hybrids like marquesitas and pan de elote, evidence of how the peninsula's bakers have always treated foreign techniques as raw material for regional identity rather than as imported standards to preserve.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
all-butter puff pastry
Quantity
1 pound
cold, thawed in the refrigerator if frozen
granulated white sugar
Quantity
1 1/2 cups, plus more for rolling
fine sea salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
ground Mexican cinnamon (canela) (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
all-purpose flour
Quantity
for the work surface
a light dusting only
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-butter puff pastrycold, thawed in the refrigerator if frozen | 1 pound |
| granulated white sugar | 1 1/2 cups, plus more for rolling |
| fine sea salt | 1/2 teaspoon |
| ground Mexican cinnamon (canela) (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| all-purpose floura light dusting only | for the work surface |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy rolling pin
- •Two heavy sheet pans
- •Parchment paper
- •Thin metal spatula for flipping
- •Sharp chef's knife for slicing the log
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the sugar
In a small bowl, stir together the sugar, salt, and the cinnamon if you are using it. The salt is not optional. It sharpens the sweetness and keeps the sugar from tasting flat once it caramelizes. The cinnamon is a Yucatecan touch. Some panaderias in Merida add it, some do not. I keep it in because the canela is what tells you these orejas came from a Yucatecan bakery and not a French one.
Use Mexican canela, the soft bark that crumbles between your fingers. Cassia, the hard stick sold as cinnamon in most supermarkets, is a different spice and will taste medicinal here. - 2
Sugar the work surface
Scatter a generous layer of the sugar mixture over your work surface, about half a cup. Forget the flour your French pastry book told you about. You roll orejas on sugar, not flour. The sugar gets pressed into the dough as you roll, and that is what gives the finished oreja its glass-like crust. Place the cold puff pastry block on the sugared surface and sprinkle more sugar on top.
- 3
Roll the dough into a rectangle
Roll the puff pastry into a rectangle about 10 inches by 14 inches, roughly 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle more sugar over the top as you roll. Keep the dough moving so it does not stick. If it softens too much and gets sticky, slide it onto a sheet pan and chill it for ten minutes. Cold pastry rolls clean. Warm pastry tears.
Press the sugar into the dough with the rolling pin as you work. You want the grains embedded in the surface, not just sitting on top. That is how the caramel forms in the oven. - 4
Fold the ears
Position the rectangle with the long side facing you. Fold each long edge toward the center, stopping about an inch short of the middle. Then fold those folded edges in again so they meet in the center. Finally, fold one half over the other like closing a book. You should now have a long log with four visible layers in cross-section. This is where the ear shape comes from. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo, and these folds are the work.
- 5
Chill the log
Wrap the log in plastic and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, until firm. Skip this and you cannot cut clean slices. The folded pastry needs to relax and the butter needs to firm back up. This is the difference between an oreja that opens into clean petals and one that flops out shapeless on the sheet pan.
- 6
Slice into ears
Heat the oven to 400F (200C) and line two heavy sheet pans with parchment. Pull the log from the refrigerator and slice it crosswise into pieces about 1/2 inch thick. Use a sharp knife and a clean pull, not a sawing motion. Each slice should show the spiral folds clearly. That spiral is the ear.
- 7
Press and sugar again
Lay the slices flat on the parchment, leaving at least three inches between them. They spread aggressively in the oven. Sprinkle more sugar over the tops and press each one gently with the heel of your hand to flatten it slightly. The pressing helps the layers fan out as they bake. Generous with the sugar here. No me vengas con atajos.
- 8
Bake until caramelized
Bake for 10 minutes, then pull the pans out and flip each oreja with a thin spatula. They should be golden on the bottom and the sugar should be starting to caramelize into a glassy amber surface. Return to the oven for another 6 to 8 minutes, until the second side is the same deep gold. Watch them closely in the last few minutes. The line between caramelized and burned is about 90 seconds.
If your oven runs hot or has a strong bottom element, the underside will caramelize faster than the top. Trust your eyes, not the clock. Pull them when the sugar is amber, not mahogany. - 9
Cool on the pan
Slide the parchment off the hot pan onto a cooling rack and let the orejas cool completely before you move them. The caramelized sugar is liquid glass when it comes out of the oven and will crack the moment it cools. If you lift them too soon, they fold in half and lose their ears. Wait. They are worth it. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Use all-butter puff pastry. The cheap stuff made with margarine or vegetable shortening will not caramelize the same way and the flavor is wrong. If you are buying frozen, read the label. Dufour is reliable in the United States. In Mexico, La Europea and good local panaderias sell it by the kilo.
- •Sugar in, sugar out. You will use far more sugar than feels right. That is the point. The dough must be coated, the work surface must be coated, the slices must be coated again before baking. A substitution to less sugar is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Orejas keep their crunch for about 24 hours in a sealed tin. After that they soften and lose what makes them orejas. Make them the day you want to eat them. They are a morning pastry, not a make-ahead project.
Advance Preparation
- •The folded log of pastry can be wrapped tightly and refrigerated for up to 24 hours before slicing, or frozen for up to one month. If frozen, thaw in the refrigerator overnight before slicing.
- •The orejas themselves do not keep well. Bake them the day you want to eat them. By the second day they soften, and a soft oreja is not an oreja.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 33g)
Calories
160 calories
Total Fat
7 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
2 g
Cholesterol
16 mg
Sodium
125 mg
Total Carbohydrates
22 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
13 g
Protein
1 g
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