Tartaletas de Queso de Bola Yucatecas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Twenty-four 2 1/4-inch tartaleta molds, fluted or plain
• •Heavy small saucepan for the custard
• •Wooden spoon
• •Fine box grater or microplane
• •Pastry brush
• •Rolling pin
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the pasta quebrada

   In a wide bowl, whisk the flour, powdered sugar, and salt. Add the cold cubes of manteca and work them in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal with a few pea-sized pieces of lard still visible. The lard must stay cold. Warm lard makes a greasy crust that will not hold the shape of the molds. La manteca es el sabor, but only when it is cold enough to do its job.

   Do not use butter or shortening. The pasta quebrada in Yucatán is built on manteca de cerdo. It gives the shell a savory backbone that balances the sweet guayaba and the salt of the queso de bola.
2. 2

   Bind the dough

   Beat the two egg yolks with three tablespoons of ice water and the lime zest. Pour into the flour mixture and bring it together with a fork, then with your hands, just until it holds. If it is dry, add the fourth tablespoon of water one teaspoon at a time. The dough should feel cool, slightly tacky, and hold a pinch without crumbling. Do not knead. Kneading builds gluten and gluten turns this dough tough.

3. 3

   Chill the dough

   Divide the dough in two, press into flat discs, wrap tightly, and refrigerate for at least one hour. No me vengas con atajos. A warm dough will not roll thin without tearing and the shells will shrink in the oven. One hour minimum. Overnight is better.

4. 4

   Build the cheese custard

   In a heavy small saucepan, whisk the milk, cream, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and egg yolks until completely smooth. Set over medium-low heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom and the corners. After five to seven minutes the mixture will thicken suddenly, around the time it just starts to bubble at the edges. Pull it off the heat the moment it coats the back of the spoon and holds a clean line when you draw a finger across.

5. 5

   Fold in the queso de bola

   Off the heat, stir in the vanilla. Add the finely grated queso de bola in three additions, stirring after each one until it melts into the warm custard. The cheese will pull the custard tighter and turn it pale gold. Taste it. The custard should taste like a salted vanilla cream with the unmistakable nutty edge of the queso de bola underneath. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface and cool to room temperature.

   Queso de bola is the Edam cheese the Yucatán adopted in the 19th century through trade with Holland via Cuba. Do not substitute mild cheddar or jack. The salt and the firm bite of a true Edam are what carry the dish. Find one at a Latin grocery or a serious cheese shop and ask for a wheel with the red wax still intact.
6. 6

   Roll and cut the shells

   Heat the oven to 350°F. Lightly flour a cool work surface. Roll one disc of dough to a scant 1/8-inch thickness, turning it a quarter turn after every pass to keep it round and to keep it from sticking. Cut rounds slightly larger than your tartaleta molds, about 3 inches across for a 2 1/4-inch mold. Press each round gently into the mold, working the dough up the sides without stretching it. Stretched dough snaps back in the oven and the shell loses its shape.

7. 7

   Blind bake the shells

   Prick the bottoms once with a fork. Set the molds on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the bottoms have gone from raw white to a pale parchment color. Brush the inside of each shell lightly with the egg wash and return to the oven for two more minutes. The egg wash seals the dough and keeps the custard from soaking through. This is the small step that separates a tartaleta that holds together at a wedding from one that goes soggy on the buffet table.

8. 8

   Fill and bake again

   Spoon a heaping teaspoon of the cheese custard into each shell, filling to just below the rim. Press two or three cubes of ate de guayaba into the center of each one, half submerged in the custard. Return the sheet pan to the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the custard is set with the faintest tremor in the very center when you nudge the pan. The tops will be pale gold, the guayaba softened and glossy.

9. 9

   Glaze and cool

   Brush the warm tops lightly with the loosened guayaba glaze. It will set as the tartaletas cool and give them the lacquered finish you see on the trays at the panaderias in Mérida. Cool in the molds for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Serve at room temperature, never cold from the refrigerator. Cold dulls the salt of the queso de bola and stiffens the custard. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •The queso de bola must be the real one, the small Edam wheel in red wax. Look for it at Latin grocers, at Cuban markets, or at a good cheese counter. If the shop only carries the waxed industrial Edam blocks, that will work, but the wheel with the rind cut fresh is closer to what you find in Mérida. Do not substitute mozzarella, cheddar, or cream cheese. They are not the same cheese and they do not behave the same way.
• •Ate de guayaba is the firm pink-red guava paste sold in flat blocks. It is not jam, it is not jelly, it is paste firm enough to cut into cubes that hold their shape in the oven. Goya and La Costeña both make a passable version. If you have access to ate from Morelia, even better.
• •Pasta quebrada is not pâte sucrée. It is shorter, more crumbly, and built on lard rather than butter. Do not try to roll it as thin as a French tart shell. A scant 1/8 inch is right. Thinner and it tears, thicker and the texture goes bready.
• •These travel well. The Yucatecan caterers stack them in tin trays lined with paper doilies and they hold for half a day at room temperature without losing anything. Refrigeration ruins them. Make them the morning of the event.

Advance Preparation

• •The pasta quebrada can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated, or frozen for one month. Let it come back to a workable temperature in the refrigerator overnight before rolling.
• •The cheese custard can be made one day ahead, pressed with plastic wrap directly on the surface, and refrigerated. Bring back to room temperature and stir smooth before filling the shells.
• •The baked and filled tartaletas are best the day they are made. They hold at room temperature for up to eight hours. Do not refrigerate, the custard tightens and the shell goes damp.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 67g)