From Vault to Table: Mexican Fritters (Buñuelos de Molde)

Blog post by Paige Hayhurst, rare books student assistant.

To celebrate the holidays and New Year, I thought I would attempt to make a traditional holiday recipe according to the queen of Mexican cookbooks, Josefina Velázquez de León. Josefina began her career as a chef and teacher after taking culinary classes in Mexico City. She started by submitting recipes to magazines and eventually founded her own cooking school and publishing house, Ediciones Josefina Velázquez de León.

Over the course of her life, she published nearly 140 titles, over 130 of which can be found in Special Collections’ 1800 volume Mexican Cookbook Collection. For this occasion, I chose a recipe for buñuelos de molde out of her 1946 cookbook Especialidades para Navidad, Fin de Año y día de Reyes Mexico, D.F.: Academia de Cocina, 1946. [TX739.2.C45 V45 1946]

Josefina’s recipe (number 59–Buñuelos de Molde) is a traditional one that calls…