I think I should dance a little bit, just this one time, because… this is my first post!
*dance, dance, dance*
Ok, lets begin.
Recently I received a request from a bride to be; she wanted some cupcakes with mexican flavors for her wedding. In Mexico we have a great variety of sweets and desserts, and many of them date back to ancient times, so I had a lot of options to choose from.
I decided to make two different cupcakes using two desserts as inspiration: arroz con leche and ate de guayaba.
Arroz con leche is rice pudding (a more literal translation would be rice with milk) and it is one of my favorite desserts. My mother prepares an amazing arroz con leche, and she taught me how to prepare it, although mine is never as good as hers. This sweet and delicious dish can be found in a lot of countries, and it varies a little bit from one country to another… I read some people use egg to prepare it! It sounds weird, but one of these days will taste it and then let you know about it.
Dulce de membrillo or Ate (it is pronounced with an A as in CAN and with an E as in ELEPHANT… not like the past tense of eat) is quince cheese or quince paste, and it is originally from Spain and Portugal. In this case I used ate de guayaba, which is translated as guava paste. Guava is a fruit that most people find unappetizing because of the strong smell, but I really like it, specially when I use it to prepare hot Christmas fruit punch.
It is like a thick, dense jelly.
The cupcakes came out great, in each bite you can taste a lot of flavors, like little colorful explosions in your mouth (this recalls me of one scene of the Ratatouille movie… you know which one!). I added a little bit of cinnamon to the frosting of each cupcake in order to stand out the guava and the arroz con leche flavors.
I really enjoy mixing flavors and recreating recipes, it’s like tasting a dish for the very first time.
Buen provecho!
A culinary blog 