Cooking in
Oregon
Mexican
Arepas — Mascota, Jalisco
Not to be confused with the thick corn cakes of Colombia and Venezuela, these Mexican arepas are crisp, lightly sweetened biscuit-cookies from the mountain town of Mascota in Jalisco. Piloncillo — raw cane sugar with notes of molasses and caramel — is dissolved with orange peel into a thin syrup, then worked with lard and vegetable shortening into a stiff dough. A splash of fresh lime juice lifts the richness. The finished cookies bake hard and dry, glossed with egg yolk and scattered with granulated sugar: the kind of thing eaten with coffee or hot chocolate on a cool Jalisco morning.
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Cook
I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
Syrup
Not yet stocked in Oregon
125 ml (1/2 cup)
water
Your own market
Peel of 1 orange (removed in wide strips, pith avoided)
Your own market
180 g (6 oz)
piloncillo or dark brown sugar, grated
Not yet stocked in Oregon
Fats
Not yet stocked in Oregon
60 g (2 oz)
vegetable shortening
Not yet stocked in Oregon
115 g (scant 4 oz)
pork lard
Not yet stocked in Oregon
Dough
Not yet stocked in Oregon
3/4 tsp
baking powder
Your own market
1/2 tsp
baking soda
Your own market
1/4 tsp
salt
Your own market
2 tbsp
fresh lime juice
Your own market
2
eggs, lightly beaten
Your own market
675 g (1-1/2 lb)
all-purpose flour
Your own market
Glaze & Finish
Not yet stocked in Oregon
1
egg yolk
Your own market
1 tbsp
milk
Your own market
80 ml (1/3 cup)
granulated sugar
Your own market
II
The Method
1
Make the syrup. Combine water, orange peel strips, and piloncillo in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Continue boiling without stirring until the syrup reaches the thin-thread stage, 106–110°C (223–230°F). Remove the orange peel.
2
Incorporate the fats. Remove the pan from heat. Stir in the vegetable shortening and lard until both melt fully into the syrup. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and allow to cool until the mixture is warm but not hot — roughly 40–45°C (104–113°F).
3
Build the dough. Stir the baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the cooled mixture. Add the lime juice and beaten eggs, mixing well. Add the flour in two or three additions, stirring after each, until a stiff, cohesive dough forms. Knead briefly in the bowl until smooth. Do not add water.
4
Rest. Wrap the dough and let it rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.
5
Roll and cut. Heat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Line two baking sheets with parchment. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to 6 mm (1/4 inch) thickness. Cut into star or flower shapes with a 6–7 cm cutter. Transfer to prepared sheets.
6
Glaze and sugar. Whisk the egg yolk with the milk. Brush the surface of each cookie lightly. Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.
7
Bake. Bake for 25–35 minutes, rotating the sheets once halfway through, until the cookies are a pale golden brown and feel firm and dry throughout. They will crisp further as they cool.
8
Cool. Transfer to a wire rack. Store in an airtight tin for up to two weeks.
III
Sensory Tests
◇Snap the cookie cleanly between two fingers: a proper Mascotan arepa breaks with an audible crack and the cross-section shows a tight, dry, sandy crumb with no give. If it bends or compresses before breaking, fat ratio or baking time is wrong.
◇Smell the broken edge before tasting: you should catch warm molasses, a distinct top note of orange zest, and a faint caramel char from the piloncillo. If the dominant smell is plain butter-sweetness or vegetable oil, the piloncillo has been shortchanged.
◇Press the flat base with a fingernail: it should leave no mark and feel genuinely hard, not just firm. The egg-yolk glaze on the top surface should be smooth and amber, not pale yellow or matte — paleness indicates the glaze was applied too late or the oven temperature too low.
◇Where it lives or dies. The arepa lives or dies in the dissolution of the piloncillo: the raw cone must be melted slowly with orange peel into a syrup that is then cooled before it meets the fat. If the syrup is worked into the dough while still warm, it softens the lard prematurely, producing a greasy, spreading cookie that never achieves the hard, dry snap that is the whole point of the thing.
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