Pan Francés con Piloncillo y Canela

This is fonda food from Ciudad de México. Not the version they serve in hotel buffets. The one in the working-class fondas of the Centro, in the small kitchens along Donceles and República de Cuba, where the cook has been awake since five and the regulars come in for the same plate every Tuesday.

The bread is bolillo. Not brioche, not challah, not pan de caja. Bolillo is the crusty white roll that every panadería in Mexico bakes by the thousands every morning, and a day-old bolillo is what you use here. Fresh bolillo collapses. Stale bolillo holds. That is the rule.

The syrup is piloncillo, not maple. Piloncillo is unrefined cane sugar pressed into a cone, dark and smoky, with a mineral depth that comes from being boiled down without bleaching or filtering. Cook it with a stick of true canela, two cloves, and a strip of orange peel until it runs off the spoon in a slow ribbon. That syrup is not optional. That syrup is the dish.

My mother made this for me when I was sick. The condensed milk in the custard, that little spoonful of la lechera, is the fonda trick that makes it richer than it has any right to be. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the chilangos who eat it standing at the counter before they catch the metro.