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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Pastelitos de Guayaba Yucatecos
Created by
Yucatán's panadería pastry, a crumbly lard-and-butter shortbread sealed around a slab of ate de guayaba and buried under powdered sugar. Sold wrapped in waxed paper to anyone with twenty pesos and a sweet tooth.
Pastries & Cookies
Mexican
Make Ahead
Comfort Food
Weeknight
30 min
Active Time
25 min cook•2 hr total
Yield16 pastelitos
These are from Yucatán. Specifically from the panaderías of Mérida and Valladolid, where they sit in glass cases by mid-morning, dusted heavy with powdered sugar, sold by the piece, wrapped in a square of waxed paper for the walk home. They are not Cuban pastelitos. Those are puff pastry and they are wonderful, but they are a different animal. This is a Yucatecan pastry built on a crumbly shortbread dough with lard and butter, sealed around a thick slab of ate de guayaba.
The defining ingredient is the ate. Not jam, not jelly, not the runny pink stuff in a jar. Ate de guayaba is a dense fruit paste cooked down until you can slice it with a knife, and it is sold in waxed-paper bricks at every Mexican mercado and tienda. If your guayaba bubbles out and runs across the pan when it bakes, you used the wrong product. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Yucatán's pastry tradition is built on this paste plus the crumb of a serious dough.
My mother kept a brick of ate de membrillo in the cupboard always, the quince version, wrapped in waxed paper and tied with string. She would slice it for breakfast with queso fresco and tell us it was what her own mother did in Jalisco. Years later I tasted these pastelitos in a panadería on Calle 62 in Mérida and recognized the same paste, the same waxed paper, the same logic of a fruit cooked down so heavily it could survive a hot kitchen and a slow oven. The Yucatecos use guayaba because guayaba grows on every other patio in the peninsula. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado.
Ate, the Mexican tradition of fruit paste cooked with sugar until it sets firm enough to slice, descends from the Spanish dulce de membrillo brought by colonial nuns in the 16th and 17th centuries, who adapted the technique to native fruits including guayaba, tejocote, and zapote. Morelia in Michoacán became the colonial center of ate production thanks to the convent kitchens of the Dominican and Augustinian orders, and Morelian ate is still shipped throughout Mexico as the reference standard. Yucatán's panadería tradition, distinct from central Mexican pan dulce, was shaped in the late 19th century by both Spanish and Lebanese immigrant bakers who adapted European shortbread doughs to local pastes and the peninsular heat, producing pastries dense enough to survive a humid climate without refrigeration.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
all-purpose flour
Quantity
3 cups
plus more for rolling
granulated sugar
Quantity
1/2 cup
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon
baking powder
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
1 cup
cold, cut into small cubes
unsalted butter
Quantity
1/2 cup
cold, cut into small cubes
large egg yolks
Quantity
2
pure vanilla extract
Quantity
1 teaspoon
ice water
Quantity
4 to 6 tablespoons
ate de guayaba (Mexican guava paste)
Quantity
12 ounces
firm, cut into 16 thick slabs
large egg
Quantity
1
beaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash
powdered sugar
Quantity
1 cup
for dusting
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-purpose flourplus more for rolling | 3 cups |
| granulated sugar | 1/2 cup |
| fine sea salt | 1 teaspoon |
| baking powder | 1/2 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard)cold, cut into small cubes | 1 cup |
| unsalted buttercold, cut into small cubes | 1/2 cup |
| large egg yolks | 2 |
| pure vanilla extract | 1 teaspoon |
| ice water | 4 to 6 tablespoons |
| ate de guayaba (Mexican guava paste)firm, cut into 16 thick slabs | 12 ounces |
| large eggbeaten with 1 teaspoon water, for egg wash | 1 |
| powdered sugarfor dusting | 1 cup |
Equipment Needed
- •Pastry cutter or two table knives for cutting fat into flour
- •Rolling pin
- •Sharp paring knife or pizza wheel for cutting rectangles
- •Two parchment-lined sheet pans
- •Fine-mesh sieve for dusting powdered sugar
Instructions
- 1
Cut the fat into the flour
Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl. Scatter the cold lard and cold butter over the top. Work the fats into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal with some pieces the size of small peas. You want both fats and you want them cold. La manteca es el sabor. The lard gives the pastelito that sandy, melt-in-the-mouth crumble that the Mérida panaderías are known for. All-butter dough is a different cookie from a different country.
If the lard softens while you work, put the whole bowl in the freezer for ten minutes. Warm fat smears into the flour and you lose the crumble. - 2
Bind the dough
Whisk the egg yolks with the vanilla and four tablespoons of ice water in a small bowl. Pour into the flour mixture and stir with a fork until shaggy. Add more ice water a tablespoon at a time, only until the dough holds together when you squeeze a handful. Stop adding water the moment it comes together. Wet dough bakes tough.
- 3
Rest the dough
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat into two flat rectangles, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for at least one hour. The flour needs time to hydrate and the fats need time to firm back up. No me vengas con atajos. Skip the rest and the dough will fight you when you roll it, and the pastelitos will shrink in the oven.
- 4
Prepare the guayaba
While the dough rests, cut the ate de guayaba into 16 slabs, each about two inches long, one inch wide, and a quarter inch thick. The paste should be firm enough to hold its shape when you press it between your fingers. If it is soft, refrigerate it for twenty minutes before cutting. Ate de guayaba from Morelia or from a good Mexican brand is what you want. Not jam, not jelly. The paste.
- 5
Roll and cut the pastry
Heat the oven to 375F. Line two sheet pans with parchment. Roll one rectangle of dough on a lightly floured surface to about an eighth of an inch thick. Cut into rectangles roughly three by four inches. You should get 16 rectangles from each half of the dough, 32 total. Place a slab of guayaba in the center of half the rectangles, leaving a clean border.
- 6
Seal the pastelitos
Brush the border of each filled rectangle with egg wash. Top with a second rectangle and press the edges firmly with your fingertips. Then crimp all the way around with the tines of a fork. The seal matters. A bad seal lets the guayaba bubble out and burn on the pan. Brush the tops with egg wash and prick each pastelito twice with a fork to vent the steam.
If the dough warms up and gets sticky while you assemble, slide the sheet pan into the refrigerator for ten minutes before baking. Cold pastry holds its edges and bakes flakier. - 7
Bake until pale gold
Bake on the center rack for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the pastelitos are pale gold on top and a slightly deeper amber on the bottom edges. They should not brown deeply. A Yucatecan pastelito is the color of toasted almond, not the color of a French croissant. If they start to darken before 22 minutes, your oven runs hot and you should pull them.
- 8
Dust heavy with powdered sugar
Let the pastelitos cool on the pan for ten minutes. Move them to a rack and let them cool another fifteen minutes, until barely warm. Sift the powdered sugar over the tops in a thick, generous layer. Not a polite snowfall. A blanket. In Mérida the pastelitos come out of the bag white with sugar all over your fingers. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Get real ate de guayaba from a Mexican grocery or online. Brands like La Soledad, Carlota, or any ate from Morelia will work. Guava jam is not a substitute. It will leak and burn. Ate is firm, dense, and slices clean.
- •Use lard and butter, not all butter. The lard makes the crumb. If you use only butter, you get a French sablé. Fine cookie, wrong country. La manteca es el sabor and that is not a slogan.
- •Do not bake these dark. Yucatecan pastelitos are pale gold on top. If they brown deeply, the dough gets hard and the powdered sugar will not stick the way it should. Pull them when they are barely colored and trust the residual heat.
Advance Preparation
- •The dough can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated, or frozen for up to one month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling.
- •Assembled, unbaked pastelitos can be frozen on the sheet pan, transferred to a bag, and baked straight from the freezer with five extra minutes in the oven.
- •Baked pastelitos keep in an airtight tin at room temperature for three days. Dust with fresh powdered sugar before serving on day two or three, since the first coat will absorb into the pastry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 84g)
Calories
370 calories
Total Fat
20 g
Saturated Fat
9 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
10 g
Cholesterol
50 mg
Sodium
175 mg
Total Carbohydrates
45 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
24 g
Protein
3 g
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