Argentine · dessert

Pastelitos Criollos

Name: Pastelitos Criollos
Prep time: 2 h 7 min
Total time: 2 h 7 min
Cuisine: Argentine
Ingredients: all-purpose flour — 400 g; cold unsalted butter — 250 g; water — 150 g; salt — 5 g; white vinegar — 5 g; dulce de membrillo — 300 g; dulce de batata — 200 g; beef fat — 1000 g; sugar — 200 g; water — 120 g; coloured grageas — 30 g; egg white — 100 g

Pastelitos Criollos reads sweetness 6.3, richness 5.8 and sourness 4.8 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Argentine dessert, about 2 hr 7 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

Umami & Savory — 3.8 / 10
Sweet & Fruity — 6.3 / 10
Sour & Bright — 4.8 / 10
Bitter & Earthy — 0.2 / 10
Rich & Fat — 5.9 / 10
Aromatic & Spice — 0.0 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Sweetness 6.3 · Richness 5.8 · Sourness 4.8 · Salinity 3.7 · Umami 0.9

What's in it (12)

all-purpose flour — 400 g
cold unsalted butter — 250 g
water — 150 g
salt — 5 g
white vinegar — 5 g
dulce de membrillo — 300 g
dulce de batata — 200 g
beef fat — 1000 g
sugar — 200 g
water — 120 g
coloured grageas — 30 g
egg white — 100 g

Time & effort: about 2 hr 7 min · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 121.8 kcal, 2.9 g protein, 11.2 g fat, 27.2 g carbs

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

How it's cooked (8 steps)

Pastelitos are eaten on the patriotic dates — 25 de Mayo and 9 de Julio — with mate cocido or hot chocolate, and they are the reason quince paste exists in Argentine pantries. They are a rough puff pastry, cut in squares, stacked at an angle so they open like a flower in the fat.
Make a rough puff: rub a quarter of the butter into the flour and salt, add the water and vinegar and bring it together into a shaggy dough, then rest it 20 minutes. Roll to a long rectangle, dot the remaining butter over two-thirds, fold in three, and give it four more turns with a 20-minute chill in between each. It does not need to be an elegant lamination — the layers just have to be there.
Roll the dough to 2 mm and cut squares of 8 cm; you need two squares per pastelito.
Put a cube of membrillo or batata in the centre of one square, brush the border with egg white, and lay the second square over it turned 45 degrees so the corners fall between the corners of the first. Press hard around the filling to seal, then pinch each pair of corners together and twist.
Fry in two stages, which is the traditional method and the reason they open: first at 140 C for 3 minutes, turning once, until they puff and set pale; then lift them out, raise the fat to 180 C and fry a second time for 2 minutes until deep gold and crisp. Frying straight at high heat seals the outside before the layers can separate.
Boil the sugar and water together for 5 minutes to a light syrup, until a drop pulled between your fingers makes a short thread.
Dip each hot pastelito in the hot syrup for a few seconds, lift it out to drain on a rack, and scatter the grageas over while it is still tacky. Eat them the day they are made; they go soft overnight.
Substitutions: neutral oil can stand in for the beef fat.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Rúgbrauð (Icelandic Dark Rye Bread) — Icelandic
Cornbread — Southern
Napoleon Cake (Наполеон) — Russian
Peggy’S Cornbread — American
Creamed Kale (Grønlangkål) — Scandinavian

Keep reading: what sweetness, richness, sourness 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.