Some Typical South American Desserts

Perhaps you are a fan of Mexican food or you have a passion for traditional Mexican desserts like flan, dulce de leche cake, Mexican wedding cookies and more, but what about South American desserts and how do they compare?

If you have visited South America you might have sampled alfajor cookies, or alfajores. These are sandwich cookies which have a filling of dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a sticky sweet caramel which is as popular in traditional Mexican desserts as in the cakes and cookies of South American countries. If you want to make your own alfajores, you could sandwich them together with jelly, peanut butter, jam, cream or even ice cream.

Fruity Mousse Recipes

Another popular South American treat is passion fruit mousse. The most common mousse flavor might be chocolate but passion fruit adds a delicious tang to mousse and fruit mousses are more common than chocolate mousse in most South American countries. This mousse can be eaten as it is or used to fill cakes or sandwich cookies together.

Actually there are a lot of tropical mousse flavors which are well loved throughout South America. These light, refreshing desserts are ideal when the weather is hot and when you want to cool down.

Savory Ingredients in Sweet Recipes

Picarones are donuts made with sweet potato and pumpkin. These would make a wonderful Halloween recipe and these delectable morsels are deep fried so they come out crispy and hot. Sweet potato and pumpkin are often used in savory dishes like soups or stews and picarones are not that sweet. They are, however, served with a spiced molasses syrup which is extremely sweet and sticky.

Brigadeiros are Brazilian fudge truffle balls which are usually served in paper cups. Brazilian coconut flan and alfajor cookies are also traditionally served in these little paper cups, as is the Peruvian candy called mana.

Mana is a bit like marzipan and you can color it and mold it into fruit shapes. Mana is made with sugar, milk and eggs and it was invented when the conquistadors came to South America. There were no almonds to make marzipan so they experimented with available ingredients and came up with mana instead. It is like fondant and can be rolled out and used to frost cakes.

Peruvian Recipe for Gingerbread

This gingerbread is easy to make and has a wonderful flavor. It is a popular snack in Peru and some other parts of South America. Serve it with whipped cream or by itself.

What you will need:

1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 egg
1/3 cup shortening
1 cup hot water
1 cup molasses
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
How to make it:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a nine by nine inch cake pan and sprinkle flour over it. Combine the baking soda, flour and spices. Mix the hot water and molasses together. Mix the sugar and shortening, then add the egg and mix again.

Add the molasses mixture and the dry ingredients to the shortening mixture and pour the gingerbread into the prepared cake pan. Bake the gingerbread for forty five minutes, and then let it cool in the pan for five minutes.

If you are a fan of South American desserts you will also like the sweeter side of Mexican food. There are plenty of traditional Mexican desserts which you can easily recreate at home, incorporating delicious ingredients like vanilla, chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, tropical fruit and much more.

MexicanDessertRecipes.net The Sweet Side of Mexican Food

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