Mexican · Oaxaca · dessert

Nicuatole de Maíz

Nicuatole de Maíz reads sweetness 6.9, floral 4.1 and salinity 3.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Mexican · Oaxaca dessert, about 3 hr 49 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 3.7 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 7.7 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 0.5 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.0 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 2.8 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 4.2 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Sweetness 6.9 · Floral 4.1 · Salinity 3.7 · Fruity 2.7 · Richness 2.6 · Warm Spice 1.8 · Earthy 1.0 · Sourness 0.5

What's in it (9)

• nixtamalized corn masa — 300 g
• regular milk — 1200 g
• granulated sugar — 200 g
• canela — 2 g
• cornstarch — 30 g
• vanilla pod — 100 g
• prickly-pear juice from tunas rojas — 150 g
• salt — 5 g
• sugar for the top layer — 25 g

Time & effort: about 3 hr 49 min (3 hr 39 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 260 kcal, 21.6 g protein, 0.5 g fat, 42.3 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

1. Nicuatole is one of the oldest sweets in Oaxaca and it is essentially set atole: corn, sweetened, cooked until it will stand on its own. It should quiver, not bounce.
2. Slake the masa in 500 ml of the milk with your fingers until there are no lumps at all, then pass it through a fine sieve. Anything you leave behind now will be grit in the finished sweet.
3. Warm the rest of the milk with the canela and the split vanilla pod and let it infuse 10 minutes off the heat, then fish out the cinnamon.
4. Whisk the cornstarch into the strained masa milk, combine everything with the sugar and salt, and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, 20 minutes. It will thicken suddenly at around the fifteen-minute mark and then start to pull away from the sides of the pan in sheets — that is the sign.
5. Pour into a shallow tray to a depth of 3 cm and leave it to set at cool room temperature for 3 hours; refrigeration makes it weep.
6. Reduce the prickly-pear juice with the extra sugar for 8 minutes until syrupy, pour a thin scarlet layer over the set nicuatole, and cut into diamonds once it has firmed.
7. Substitutions: 1 tsp vanilla extract can stand in for the vanilla pod from Papantla; grenadine can stand in for the prickly-pear juice from tunas rojas.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• New World Spanish Corn Pudding — Spanish
• Plantain Tarts — Jamaican
• Cornmeal Porridge — Jamaican
• Habichuelas con Dulce — Dominican
• Picarones — Peruvian

Keep reading: what sweetness, floral, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.