Peruvian Guargüeros Recipe

Talking about the Guarguero brings back memories of my grandmother and my mother, since it was their favorite dessert. In the form of a cartridge, filled with a smooth dulce de leche and a touch of liquor It is ideal as a snack at parties or to accompany a coffee chatting with friends. Here we share the recipe to sweeten the whole family. Let’s cook!How to prepare Guargüeros

The ancient and delicious Guarguero is super easy and quick to prepare, its main ingredients are flour, eggs, blancmange and of course our flagship liquor, the very Peruvian Pisco.

🔪 Prep Time	30 minutes
🍲 Cook Time	10 minutes
⏲️ Total Time	40 minutes
🍽️ Servings	12 servings
🔥 Calories	150 calories

Ingredients

For the mass:

• 7 egg yolks
• 2 cups of unprepared flour
• 50 grams of unsalted margarine
• 50ml pisco
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt (2 gr)
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 liter of vegetable oil
• Powdered sugar to taste

For the Manjar Blanco filling:

• 1 can of condensed milk
• 1 can of evaporated milk
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 cloves
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

First the Mass:

1. Sift the flour together with the baking powder about three times and reserve in a bowl.
2. Place the yolks in the glass bowl and beat until creamy, add the margarine and beat a couple more minutes until well blended.
3. Remove the whisk, add the sifted flour with the baking powder and the pisco, mix by hand until a dough forms.
4. Place a little flour on the table, put the dough and with the help of the rolling pin stretch it until it is very thin.
5. Cut the dough into 10×10 cm squares for personal portions or 5×5 cm for snacks. With each square, form a cartridge by joining the two opposite ends and press a little with your fingers so that they join.
6. Meanwhile, pour a couple of fingers of oil into the pan and let it heat up well without burning (if you have a thermometer it should reach about 300 °F or 160 °C).
7. Fry the cartridges until golden brown on both sides (approximately 1 minute), remove from the pan and place in a dish on absorbent paper.

Now the Manjar Blanco (sweet milk):

1. Put the milk, the cinnamon stick, the cloves and the measure of a can of milk but water in the pot.
2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and caramel-colored.
3. Once ready, remove the cinnamon and let cool to add the vanilla essence.

Attention

With everything ready, assemble the Guargueros by filling the entire space of the cartridge with white manjar and sprinkling powdered sugar.

We share three tips to prepare Guargueros. Enjoy them!

Tips and tricks

• The blancmange needs a lot of patience to keep moving it while it is ripe, otherwise it will burn. You will know that it is ready, when you drop a little of the mixture on a small plate and once it is cold it does not deform.
• The original recipe is with Pisco, but if you can’t get it you can use white rum.
• The finer the dough, the crispier the Guargueros will be.

Additional information

The Guarguero is yet another of the sweets known as “convent” and it is a fusion of Spanish cuisine with Peruvian cuisine, since the cow’s milk that is the basis of dulce de leche or blancmange as we know it in Peru, it arrived with the Spanish colony.

They say that initially they baptized it as gaznate because it was very similar to this Spanish dessert that, unlike the Peruvian version, is filled with fruit.

History says that the Guarguero was born in the southern part of Peru, especially in the department of Moquegua , then it was adopted in other departments and each one gave it their own touch.

There are versions that only have powdered sugar on top and others that have a compact white coating made from sugar, lemon juice and whipped egg whites. Any of them is truly delicious.