Family Recipe: Torrejas

After the success of making Chuchitos, my cousin Yuzema and I were on a high. Let's do a recipe every month!! Images of having our own Food Network show began to dance around my head. Yeah, I know, the chuchitos were that amazing.

So for the month of December my cousin suggested we do a traditional holiday dessert. Torrejas. I had to think about this one for a second as it had been a few years since I even had one. They are basically this sweet bread with a custard type filling inside, fried and then drenched in a sweet liquid. So New Year's Eve we set out to make torrejas.of course we waited until like 6 pm to actually go and buy everything.

First stop, the bakery, fail (Mexican sweet bread wont work). Second stop, the Bakery (The Guatemalan Bakery we should have gone to first in the first place). They were out of the bread you actually use but we found something close enough. Third stop the grocery store. Made a few calls to Mom, and found everything we needed. Jazmin, Yuzema's daughter,  was eager to get started.

Such a cutie pie!

Not yet, Jaz!!

We got home only to find that Mom had left. And there was no recipe in sight. No answer to her cell. OK, plan B, call our Tia. Plan B would have worked had Plan B answered her cell. Plan C, call another Tia in Virginia... 1 out of the 3 would answer, right, right, right??? YES! Thank you Tia Glendy (shout out to you from Cali, hope you are enjoying the snow) for giving us somewhat directions on how to make manjar. Apparently everyone in this family uses measurements such as: to your taste, a handful, about a cup (not a measured cup mind you just any old cup), a packet maybe two, a spoonful (not an actual measured spoon full but one you may find in your silverware), when it "looks" done, before it "looks" done. Yup That's how the Campos ladies roll.

So we got started... a whole of "looks good to me" also started.

all of our ingredients

That's me adding a friggin gigantic spoonful of cinnamon. We were told to use cinnamon sticks but we figured this would be "neater" as in we wouldn't have to go in later and pick out the stick from the manjar. Sound logic if you ask me.

Yes, I'm posing with cinnamon, cause that's how cool I am.

 Fact: Yuzema has mad bread cutting skills...

Lesson learned: Staring at milk wont make it boil any faster!

Fact: Knowing how to crack and egg and separate the yolk truly is a gift... one that I was born with.

Fianlly like an hour later -- oh yeah we got some MANJAR in the house. It should be white but that's what happens when you put too much cinnamon. It was still really, really yummy.

Time to get our frying skills on... Paula Dean eat your heart out!

I got a little tired and wanted to stretch my hip muscles...

 

About THREE hours later, VICTORY WAS OURS!! Yes, I'm yelling here. Aren't they beautiful? We made two dozen but these were the better looking dozen. We also forgot to add the little raisin on the center top but whateves... Here they are in all their fried glory, time to drench them in some sweet stuff!

 

In other words, time to make the Juice! It's like melted syrup, that's the best way I can explain its' taste. I have no idea what the actual thing we melted to make it is called but Jazmin was eager to eat it if you scroll up a few pictures, you'll see what I'm talking about. 

Ain't she pretty? Or he? Or it actually. (pretend we put a raisin on it)

They were soooo gooooooood. Food Network here we come.

While doing some online research, we learned that there are like different versions of this thing, some call them Molletes, but in this family... It's a Torreja!