Tortitas De Pepita

This recipe for Tortitas de Pepita hails from an 1884 handwritten Mexican manuscript, the Libro de Recetas de Cocina by Guadalupe Perez, created in Acatzingo, Puebla. This notebook documents the everyday and celebratory foods of late 19th-century central Mexico, showcasing the blending of Spanish baking techniques with indigenous ingredients and preparation methods. The recipe reflects a period when household recipes were passed among women, shared within families, and recorded in personal notebooks more than in printed cookbooks. Tequesquite, a naturally occurring mineral salt harvested from Mexican lakes, served as a leavening and seasoning agent decades before modern baking powder reached rural kitchens.

The baker would have used a large clay or wooden bowl to mix the dough by hand, employing a simple wooden spoon or their hands. The dough was likely rolled with a sturdy wooden rolling pin ('palote'), and the shapes cut using a small knife or perhaps a tin cutter, depending on the household. The cookies would have been baked in a traditional wood-fired oven or a heavy iron comal, both common in Mexican kitchens of the era.