Tortitas de Santa Clara Poblanas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter
• •Heavy baking sheets
• •Small saucepan for piloncillo syrup
• •Food processor, molino, or metate for grinding pepitas
• •Talavera plate or paper-lined tin for serving

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the dough

   Whisk the flour, powdered sugar, and salt in a wide bowl. Rub in the manteca de cerdo with your fingertips until the mixture looks like damp sand. Add the egg yolks and vanilla. Work in the milk one tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together and stops cracking. It should feel firm, smooth, and obedient, not sticky.

2. 2

   Rest the dough

   Gather the dough into a disk, wrap it, and rest it at room temperature for 20 minutes. Do not skip the rest. Wheat flour tightens when handled, and a tight dough bakes hard. This cookie should break cleanly under your teeth, then soften.

3. 3

   Shape the tortitas

   Heat the oven to 325F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 2 1/2-inch rounds. Press a shallow well in the center of each round with your thumb or the bottom of a small glass, leaving a raised rim. This well holds the pepita glaze later. If you fill before baking, the topping dries out and cracks badly.

4. 4

   Bake them pale

   Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the pans once, until the rims are set and the bottoms are just faintly golden. The tops should stay pale. Do not chase color here. These are Puebla convent cookies, not browned butter biscuits. Let them cool completely on the pans.

5. 5

   Grind the pepitas

   Toast the pepitas in a dry skillet over medium-low heat for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring constantly, just until they smell nutty and a few begin to pop. Do not brown them hard or the glaze turns muddy. Cool them, then grind in a food processor or molino until fine and slightly oily. You want a paste-like meal, not coarse gravel.

   If your pepitas are old, they will taste stale before you even toast them. Buy from a market or tienda with turnover. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
6. 6

   Cook the syrup

   Combine the grated piloncillo, water, and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until the piloncillo dissolves and the syrup lightly coats a spoon. Strain if your piloncillo has grit. Good piloncillo tastes like cane and smoke. Bad piloncillo tastes like dust.

7. 7

   Finish the glaze

   Stir the ground pepitas into the hot syrup. Cook over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until thick, spreadable, and dull green. If it tightens too much, loosen it with one tablespoon of milk. The glaze should sit on the cookie without running over the rim.

8. 8

   Fill and set

   Spoon a small mound of warm pepita glaze into the well of each cooled cookie and smooth it with the back of the spoon. Let the tortitas stand uncovered for at least 1 hour so the topping firms. Serve on talavera or packed in a paper-lined tin, the way the dulcerias do it. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Use manteca de cerdo, not butter, if you want the Puebla texture. Butter gives flavor, yes, but it also gives a different cookie. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Hulled raw pepitas should be green and smell clean. If they smell oily or bitter before toasting, they are rancid. Throw them out.
• •Piloncillo gives the topping a deeper cane flavor. White sugar makes a cleaner, paler glaze and many Puebla sweet shops use it. I prefer piloncillo because it tastes less polite.
• •Do not overbake the cookie base. A tortita de Santa Clara should be pale, firm at the edge, and tender inside. Brown edges mean you waited too long.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. Let it soften at room temperature for 20 minutes before rolling.
• •The baked unfilled cookies keep in an airtight tin for 3 days. Fill them the day you plan to serve them so the pepita glaze stays clean and tender.
• •Finished tortitas keep for 2 days at room temperature in a single layer. Do not refrigerate them. The glaze turns damp and the cookie loses its bite.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 33g)