Teja

A milk caramel cooked down until it holds a shape, wrapped round a pecan and coated in hard white fondant.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

For the manjar blanco

• 1 litre whole milk
• 300 g caster sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 strip lime peel

To fill and coat

• 24 pecan halves, or dried figs or prunes
• 400 g fondant icing sugar
• about 60 ml water
• 1 teaspoon lime juice

Method

1. THE MANJAR BLANCO IS COOKED DOWN UNTIL IT HOLDS A SHAPE. Far past the point where it would be a pouring caramel, and past the point where it coats a spoon -- it is done when a spoonful dropped onto a cold plate stands up as a mound and a finger drawn through it leaves a channel that does not close. That is forty-five minutes to an hour of stirring. Taken off at pouring consistency, the filling will not hold the nut and the whole sweet slumps inside its fondant shell within a day.
2. AND IT IS STIRRED CONSTANTLY FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN MINUTES, and into the corners. It catches the moment it is thick, and scorched milk caramel is bitter through the whole batch.
3. THE BICARBONATE IS A PINCH AND IT IS NOT OPTIONAL. It raises the pH, which is what lets the milk brown properly to the deep colour manjar blanco should be. Without it the caramel stays pale and tastes merely sweet.
4. IT IS COOLED COMPLETELY BEFORE SHAPING, several hours. Warm, it cannot be handled at all; cold, it rolls between the palms like marzipan.
5. THE FONDANT IS MIXED STIFF AND USED AT ONCE. Icing sugar with barely enough water to make a thick paste and a little lime juice, which stops it setting glassy. It skins over in minutes, so the fillings are all shaped and lined up before any water goes near the sugar.
6. AND EACH ONE IS DIPPED AND SET DOWN ON PAPER TO HARDEN, not rolled. The coating should be a thin white shell you can hear crack, which means one coat and a few hours drying, uncovered.
7. Milk, sugar, bicarbonate and lime peel brought slowly to the boil in a wide heavy pan, stirred until the sugar dissolves.
8. Simmered, stirred often, 45 MINUTES to 1 hour, until deeply coloured and very thick.
9. TESTED on a cold plate: a spoonful should stand as a mound and a finger-drawn channel should stay open.
10. The lime peel removed. Poured into a shallow dish and COOLED COMPLETELY, 3 hours or overnight.
11. A heaped teaspoon taken and rolled between the palms, a pecan half pressed into the middle, and the caramel closed round it and shaped into a small oval.
12. All 24 shaped and lined up on baking paper before the fondant is mixed.
13. The fondant icing sugar mixed with the lime juice and just enough water to make a thick, barely pourable paste.
14. Each oval dipped, lifted out with a fork, tapped to shed the excess, and set on paper.
15. Left uncovered 3 to 4 HOURS until the shell is hard and matt. Kept in a tin between layers of paper; they keep two weeks.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Peru · All recipes