Chilean Cuisine, Part III

A lemon with marzipan and meringue torte.

The cake that I purchased.

These are variations of a common sweet filled with manjar

called "torta milojas," literally cake of one thousand leaves.

Other sweets. From right to left: meringue filled with manjar,

a sugar-coated alfajor, torta milojas, and a meringue tart.

The incredible, edible marraqueta.

Today, rather than talk about just one item of Chilean cuisine, I'm going to survey a wide variety of Chilean Bakery. Here, there are two different types of bakeries. In the US, usually one bakery sells both bread, cakes, candy, and what not; in Chile a "panaderia" is a place you go to buy bread and other things like that. A "dulceria" is the place you go to buy cakes, sweets, cookies, and other things of the sort. I have the luxury of living next to arguably the best dulceria in Santiago, and so will grace you with a few photos of those.

For bread, Chileans most commonly do not buy it by the loaf. You can buy any type of loaf bread you want, but here it's obvious that the "marraqueta" and the "hallulla" reign supreme in that department. The marraqueta is the base of Chilean bread consumption, and makes up about 70% of all bread sold. It's a simple bread, derived from French tradition, that is composed of four small pieces joined together. The marraqueta is used for everything from toast to hot dog buns to sandwich bread. The hallulla is another common bread usually consumed for breakfast or for tea. It's round and very buttery and delicious.

As for pastries and other sweets, it's likely that the vast majority contain manjar, a caramel-like jelly that is known in the states as "dulce de leche," due to it's origin in boiling condensed milk. Of all of these, my personal favorite is the "alfajor," basically two cookies filled with manjar in between. However, the alfajor comes in a shapes and sizes, and can be found dipped in chocolate, with rum and raisins, orange, or marzipan. In addition, most of the cakes to be found include manjar in some way. Last week I had tea with some of my mother's friends and bought them a cake that contained layered filling of thin crust, apricot jelly, and manjar. The crust was made of marzipan, which is a sweet almond paste. It was unbelievable and if any of you should come visit me, I'll have to buy you a cake of this sorts or some variation. I hope that these pictures entice you and prove just how delicious Chilean bakery is. It's so good I think it's better than anything we've got in the states. Enjoy!

Preview for tomorrow: A guide to Chilean booze.