Rick Bayless Buñuelos

RECIPE: https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/cr...

Buñuelos, the remarkably thin, golden, crispy pastry disks that are popular throughout much of Mexico—especially at Christmastime—are an obsession of mine.

When you come across the street vendors stretching and frying them right in front of you, you’ll be mesmerized by the skillful technique the cooks command, almost effortlessly, as they roll and stretch balls of dough into improbably thin rounds you can practically read the paper through.

Maneuvering such a large sheet of dough into and out of hot oil is another feat. Branding the golden beauty that unmistakably Mexican flavor of raw cone sugar (piloncillo) and anise—either as a brothy syrup or a shiny glaze—sears the buñuelo experience into your memory.

I’m not going to ask you to master the street vendor’s expertise to produce your buñuelos. But neither am I going to encourage you to just fry store-bought flour tortillas and pass them off as the real deal.

Instead, you’ll make them smaller, which means they’ll be much easier to roll, stretch and fry. But I’ll assure you: when you and your friends and family bite into these crispy-flaky beauties, you’ll be having that real buñuelo experience.

This recipe relies on Velázquez de León’s dough from Cocina oaxaqueña, forming and frying instructions from the Coyoacán street vendors, and the glazing technique is from Dulcería de Celaya in the Mexico City’s historic center.