Tamales de Dulce

Sweet tamales descend from a genuinely ancient practice: tamales are among the oldest documented Mesoamerican foods, and the Nahua sweetened some versions of the masa with honey or agave syrup for feasts and offerings long before sugar arrived. After the conquest, cane sugar, raisins, butter and cinnamon entered the masa, and the modern tamal de dulce — often pink — took shape as an everyday sweet across central Mexico. The dish has no single inventor; the pink color is a relatively modern convention, used both to make the tamales pretty and to mark them as sweet so they are not confused with savory ones on a crowded steamer. They are strongly tied to Día de la Candelaria on February 2nd, when whoever found the figurine in the Rosca de Reyes traditionally provides the tamales.

Unwrapped, the tamal is a soft, rosy-pink block, steaming and tender, that breaks apart with a spoon. The flavor is mildly sweet — never cloying — with the cozy warmth of cinnamon running through and bursts of chewy, plumped raisin. The texture sits between a moist cornbread and a steamed pudding: a little grainy from the corn masa, soft and rich from the fat, holding its shape but yielding easily. Eaten warm with atole, it is gentle, milky-sweet comfort food, dessert and breakfast at once.

Like all tamales it relies on beating fat into nixtamalized masa: butter or lard is whipped with sugar until creamy, then masa, a little baking powder and warm liquid are beaten in until the dough is light and a pinch floats in water — that aeration is what lets a sweet tamal steam up soft instead of stodgy. Raisins and ground cinnamon are folded through, and a few drops of rosa mexicana coloring tint the dough pink. Spread in soaked corn husks, folded and stood in a steamer, the tamales cook by moist heat: the masa starches gelatinize and the sugar and fat keep the crumb tender and moist. No browning happens — the gentle steam is what gives the soft, pudding-like set, and the husk perfumes the masa faintly as it cooks.