Whomever visits Morelia will find it easy to agree that the Spaniards who built the city were confectioners at heart. The charming historic center boasts over 200 buildings constructed with pink stone, adorned with a plethora of arches, spires, and domes reminiscent of an elaborate, chic quinceañera cake. While the rosy hue may have faded somewhat due to the advent of automobiles, the impression remains striking.
Candy Capital of Mexico
A stroll down these streets, laid out in perfect Colonial-era grids, is a treat in itself. Clean and well-manicured, the cake-like buildings lining them conceal an array of restaurants, shops, and most importantly, dulcerías or candy stores. Morelia, in fact, holds the title of “Candy Capital of Mexico,” a significant honor in a country renowned for its sweet tooth.
Mexican candies are generally gooier, chewier, sweeter, and more imaginative than their U.S. counterparts. They tend to be substantial and, at least the traditional varieties, made without artificial flavors or preservatives, necessitating prompt consumption.
As one saunters along the tidy streets towards the Plaza, the Mercado de Dulces (Candy Market) beckons, located just two blocks away on Avenida Madero Poniente at Valentín Gómez Farías, behind the imposing Palacio Clavijero. The market literally buzzes with activity, including the presence of local bees, though visitors are assured they pose no threat unless one happens to be a cluster of candied coconut.
Stepping inside the hallways under the arches at the back of what was once a Jesuit college, one’s eyes adjust to the relative gloom to reveal a riot of sights and smells. Candies of all sorts are perilously stacked in brilliant pyramids, artfully arranged in wicker baskets, and hanging in little plastic bags from every conceivable surface. It’s a controlled chaos of color and sound, with the aforementioned bees too preoccupied with the sugary delights to bother visitors.
Over 170 stalls offer hundreds of different types of candies from around the Mexican Republic. Many tables feature a rainbow of ates (ah-tays), one of Morelia’s most popular candies. This jelly-like confection was created before refrigeration as a means of preserving local fruits. Originally made from boiled quince and sugar in a copper pot, ate now comes in various natural fruit flavors such as guava and mango.
Disc-shaped morelianas, another of the city’s trademark sweets, consist of two thin wafers spread with the ubiquitous cajeta, or goat-milk caramel. Vendors demonstrate how to test the freshness of a moreliana: if it bends slightly, it’s good; if it breaks, it’s old.
The Mercado de Dulces offers a vast array of confections, including cocadas, jamoncillos, tarugos, paletas, and borrachitos. Rompope, a sweet concoction made with eggs, milk, and vanilla, originally created by nuns in a Puebla convent, is also available in bottles adorned with images of Santa Clara.
The candy market doubles as a mercado de artesanías, or craft market, offering beautiful handmade toys, handicrafts, and trinkets at remarkably low prices. Each of the towns surrounding Morelia is known for its specific handicrafts, from the copper of Santa Clara del Cobre to the burnished pottery of Tzintzuntzan and the rich textiles of Pátzcuaro.
Museo del Dulce
For those curious about the history of Morelia’s candy-making tradition, the renowned Museo del Dulce on Calle Madero provides an immersive experience. Owned by one of the oldest candy-making families in Morelia, the museum transports visitors back in time with attendants dressed in turn-of-the-century outfits from the Porfiriato era.
The Museo del Dulce, part retail shop, part museum, and part candy factory, showcases the De la Calle Real candy-making company and serves as a living testimony to Morelia’s sweetest traditions. Many of the recipes for the confections displayed were created by cloistered Dominican nuns in colonial times, with some predating the arrival of the Spaniards and their Old World ingredients.
Visitors can explore a gallery of historical photos, watch a short film on the origins of candy-making in Mexico and Morelia, and observe the early machinery used in the process. The highlight for many is witnessing candy being made firsthand in the kitchen, where attendants demonstrate traditional techniques such as creating ate in copper kettles.
The museum’s café, aptly named Café del Patio de Atrás (Back Patio Café), offers rich, aromatic semi amargo (dark) chocolate that evokes memories of grandmother’s kitchens. Served with a slice of fresh-baked pastel de elote (slightly sweetened corn cake), it provides a perfect conclusion to a sweet-filled journey through Morelia’s confectionery heritage.
A dulce by any other name would still be just as sweet…
Here’s a little glossary of some of the sweet treats you can find in Morelia’s candy stores:
Ate: Original to Morelia, made from quince, pear apple, guava, mango and other fruits. They come in paste form or in laminillas,thin sheets.
Chongos Zamoranos: Caramelized milk curds flavored with sugar and cinnamon or vanilla.
Muéganos: Small balls of fried dough candied in brown sugar syrup.
Cocadas: Toasted coconut candy.
Cajeta: Goat or cow’s milk cooked with sugar until thick and rich.
Glorias: Cajeta mixed with pecans and individually wrapped.
Rompope: Sweet Mexican eggnog made with eggs, milk, and vanilla.
Jamoncillo: A kind of vanilla fudge, also flavored with guava or cinnamon.
Tarugos: Balls of smooth tamarind paste rolled in sugar or chile.
Morelianas: Disk-shaped candies made with cajeta.
Alfajores: Sugar cookies filled with dulce de leche, a thick caramel.
Huevos Reales: Custard dessert made with raisins, dry sherry, egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon and toasted pine nuts.
Borrachitos: A sort of gumdrop rolls filled with milk and liqueur.
Rollos de guayaba: Rolls made of cooked, press guava, sometimes filled with cajeta.
Paletones de cajeta: Lollipops made with cajeta.
Palanquetas: Candy brittle made with caramelized sugar and pumpkin seeds.
Arrayán: Soft tamarind candy.
Alegrías: Crunchy amaranth candies with nuts and seeds.
