Recipe for the Bishop's Tears

Lágrimas de Obispo (Bishop Tears)

The traditional dishes from Puebla show us an endless list of possibilities; but we tend to forget about the sweets from that city, certain names such as the Tortitas Santa Clara, the Camotes of Santa Clara just to name those really stand out… Many mexican sweets whose true origins are very old use the sweet potato as sweetening ingredient; we will explain the simple method to make Lagrimas de Obispo; this name in spanish can be translated to bishop's tears.

Recipe for Lágrimas de Obispo :

Ingredients:

* 2 cups sugar
* 1 tablespoon white corn syrup
* 1 tablespoon honey
* 1 cup Water
* 2 sweet potatoes, cooked, strained then mashed
* 2 purple sweet potatoes (camote morado), cooked, mashed and strained
* 1/2 lb. cherimoya, mashed and blended; substitute strawberries if unavailable
* 1/2 lb. of pineapple (already prepared) chopped and blended
* 1 cup shelled walnuts
* 3-4 tablespoons decorative edible sugar beads, gold and silver

Procedure:

1) Pour the water in a pot, adding the sugar, syrup and the honey, bring to a boil stirring until this mixture actually starts to boil; at that time start scraping the inside edges of the pan with a scraper that you will dip in cold water each time;

2) boil until this sweet mixture gets to hard ball stage, you can test this by putting a little drop from our boiling syrup in a glass of cold water and it forms a "hard ball" or at 250-265ºF, or 121 to 130°C reading temperature if using a special candy thermometer.

3) Add all the mashed sweet potatoes and simmer the mixture, stirring continuously until they come off easily from the pan, then add the cherimoya and pineapple, and when the mixture starts to thicken again it is time to pour it on a platter, immediately garnish with walnuts or pine nuts and sweet beads.