Sweets prepared for the Día de Los Muertos, or Halloween. Photo by
Maria Pagola, of Ask Maria, in Veracruz
Though some Mexican
mercados have stalls specializing in sweets, more typically confections in the mercado
area are sold from sidewalk vendors. Maybe a little table will be set up at a street
corner, or perhaps a boy will be circulating with a tray of goodies strapped around his
neck. As with tamales and breads, many sweets are made in only a small region, so when you
enter the mercado area of a city new to you, be sure to be on the lookout for local
specialties.
To give you an idea of how diverse the Mexican sweet-scene is,
here's a list just of confections spotted in and around various mercado areas:
- abuelos: in Nuevo León, candy made of
unrefined brown sugar and nuts
- acitrón: sugar-coated biznaga cactus (Mamallaria spp.)
- alegría: sweet of ancient lineage made from
amaranth seeds toasted until they pop; sold in plastic bags as shown at he right
- alfajor: confection of honey and a variety of
fruits and nuts, particularly coconut, peanuts, almonds, raisins, dates, prunes, and pine
seed; the various alfajor recipes are known by their own names, such as mosaicos,
barras, and volcanes
- alfeñique: sugar paste; during the Fiesta
de los Fieles Difuntos (during our Halloween), often made into shapes of coffins,
skulls, crosses, and other figures alluding to death
- ante: in Nayarit, egg bread and cream sprinkled
with raisins and ornamented with tiny paper flags of many colors
- ate: candied fruit; often ate is used as
a suffix on a fruit's name, so that a mangate is a mango ate, and a guayabate
is a guava ate; in some places, ates are called cajetas
- batarete: in Sonora, a thick paste made of
toasted ground corn, unrefined brown sugar, and spices
- batido: in north-central Mexico, candy made
with unrefined brown sugar, peanuts, and sesame or squash seed
- biznaga: candied cactus of the genus Mammillaria
- budín: pudding
Buñuelo from Quintana Roo
- buñuelo: a sweet
bun with many variations; in northern Mexico typically of wheat flour and orange juice, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon; about two inches in diameter
- burrito: brittle candy made of toasted corn and
boiled syrup
- cabellos de ángel: sweet made from the
filamentous pulp of the chilacayote squash
- cajeta: a desert, usually a caramel gelatin flavored with chocolate based on goat milk or, less traditionally cow milk, poured over fruit;
traditionally it's congealed in a round box four or five inches across, made of thin wood
slivers, though now it's more often sold in glass jars; there are cajetas de leche (based on milk), cajetas de membrillo (quince), cajetas de guayaba (guava), and many others; in some places cajetas
are called ates
Calavaritas for the
Día deLos Muertos. Photo by
Maria Pagola, of Ask Maria, in Veracruz
- calaverita: special
for the Fiesta de los Fieles Difuntos festival, ±coinciding with our Halloween; sugary pastry in the shape of a skull (shown at the right), often bearing the name of a dead person being remembered
- calabazate: candied pumpkin
- camote: the word camote means sweet
potato; when a sweet is being referred to, it's a candied sweet-potato cut into bars and wrapped in paper (see photo below of a comote from Puebla. Note how it is encrusted with a sugar coating.)
- canario: in Oaxaca, a tamale made with rice
flour, butter and egg, stuffed with egg and sweet condensed milk
- canelón: cinnamon candy
- capirotada: especially during Lent, a white-
bread pudding with various combinations of ingredients, such as cheese, tomato, peanuts,
raisins, and biznaga cactus, all covered with syrup
- caramelo: caramel
- cemita: a bread prepared in diverse ways; in
Zacatecas it contains dried fruits, coconut or nuts, and is sprinkled with sugar
- charamusca: melted, twisted brown or white
sugar, usually with peanuts or coconut
- chongo: bread fried in butter and cooked in
heavy syrup, often topped with cheese
- cocada: dessert composed of coconut, egg, and
sugar, sometimes also milk, pineapple, jícama, or even wine
- condoche: gordita made with sweet corn
mixed with cinnamon, milk, sugar, and vanilla
- conserva: jam or
conserve, typically made with fruit
- coyota: in Sonora, wheat tortillas sweetened
with brown sugar
- dulce: sweet, or candy
- dulce de coyol: a sweet made from the coyol
palm, Acrocomia mexicana
- empanada: a wheat-flour tortilla folded over
almost any ingredient, then fried in oil; a typical sweet empanada is one
containing nuts and unrefined brown sugar
- encaladilla: an empanada containing
sweet coconut
- flan: custard
- fruta cubierta: "crystallized fruit"
-- a fruit or some other edible plant part, often a fig, orange, lemon, or pumpkin, coated
with syrup
- galletas dulces: cookies
- gaznate: in Oaxaca, a cylindrical sweet filled
with meringue
- gloria: in Coahuila and Nuevo León, a nut
sweet
- helado: ice cream
- jalea: jelly
- jamoncillo: finely ground nuts or seeds,
especially pumpkin, pine-nuts, or peanuts, prepared with milk and sugar
- macarrón: macaroon,
shown at the right, typically made of sugar, egg whites, coconut, and ground almonds
- mamón: a bland, spongy bread of corn starch,
egg, sugar, and cinnamon
- marquesote: caramel; also a cake made of finely
ground rice flour or cornmeal, sugar, and eggs, baked and usually cut into rhomboids
- memelita: in southern Pacific region, simple
sweets based on cornmeal
- merengue: meringue
- mermelada: marmalade
- mondongo: fruit dish, often with mango, papaya,
and soursop
- mostachón: a kind of macarrón, often
with nuts
- muégano: in Puebla, the word for nuégado,
or nougat
- nacatamal dulce: in Michoacán and Guerrero, a
tamale wrapped in corn shucks or banana leaves, containing candied citron and raisins
- nieve: sherbet
- nuégado: nougat -- candy made with almonds or
other nuts stirred into a sugar paste
- oreja de mico: in Tabasco, a wild papaya fruit
-- much smaller than regular papayas in markets -- prepared with brown sugar
- palanqueta:
a crisp candy based on brown-sugar syrup and/or refined sugar, toasted corn, and nuts
(especially almonds, peanuts, and walnuts); the ones shown at the right are of cacahuate,
or peanuts
- pan dulce: sweet rolls
- panetela: dry sweetbread with egg, almonds, and
spices
- papín: in Tabasco, a kind of custard
- pastel: cake
- pasteles: pastries
- pay: pie
- pegoste: apple marmalade typical of upland
Jalisco
- pepitoría: like a palanqueta, but
instead of nuts, seeds are used, especially of squash and sesame
- pilón or
- piloncillo: chunks of unrefined brown sugar, often sold wrapped in corn husks
- pipián: in Tabasco, a kind of custard
- ponteduro: in Yucatán, sugar paste cut into cylinders
- queso de tuna: candy made from prickly pear
cactus, sometimes prepared with nuts
- rosca or rosquita: a ring-shaped cake often with a small toy baked into it, so watch when you bite into them...
- tamales dulces: like regular tamales steamed in
corn shucks, but containing sweet ingredients such as pineapple
- ticuta: In Oaxaca, a cloverleaf-shaped cracker
with coconut and cinnamon, sprinkled with red sugar
- torreja: in Oaxaca, slice of bread topped with
egg and covered with honey
- totopo: In the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a
variety of the 10-to-14-inch-wide corn tortilla made of masa and containing ground
fruit and sweetener
- trompada: melted, twisted brown sugar with
peanuts or coconut
- turcos: in Nuevo León, sweetbreads stuffed
with dried meat
- turrón: nougat -- a candy made with almonds or
other nuts, stirred into a sugar paste
- turulete: in Tabasco, at Christmas and New
Year, made of pinole, and unrefined brown sugar, and typically eaten at coffee
time; different recipes in other states
- xato: in Oaxaca, a triangular cracker made of
cornmeal and unrefined brown sugar
- yururichústata: in Michoacán, a gordita
prepared with unrefined brown sugar
