Product Comparison: Bolitos de Leche

Although I tend to make a lot of sweet food, I actually prefer savory, salty foods over anything else. So while everyone else is eating the sweets I make, I'm looking around saying, "Oh my goodness, can someone pass me a salt shaker???" This changes when I go to a foreign country, however. For some reason, I have an obsession with foreign sweets--they're so different from the American idea of sweets! Whether it's milky, lightly spiced and oh-so-sweet ras malai, or a warm, fluffy, sweet red bean bao, or flaky, sticky-sweet, nutty baklava, I just find foreign sweets to be fascinating.

Besides trying to make them (I must say, I'm surprisingly good at making Indian/Bengali sweets, mishti or mithai, and I make a meaaaaan red bean bao), I LOVE trying them out from stores and restaurants.

This summer I went to Mexico City, and besides constantly eating sweet foods (like a crepe covered in a dulce de leche made from goats milk that I had for lunch one day), I indulged myself at the supermarket, and became hooked on these extremely sweet Bolitos de Leche - literally, "balls of milk".

I bought some from the supermarket near my sister's house, and then I bought more at the airport. They were two different brands, and they ended up being VERY different in taste and texture, which surprised me. So, I'm going to compare them here:

The above picture is what they both basically looked like from the outside - golden brown, coated in large sugar crystals. They are about the size of a large walnut, I guess.

This next picture is of the Bolitos de Leche that I bought from the supermarket, made by the brand "Las Sevillanas".

When you bite into this baby, your teeth sink through a thin, sugary crust into a creamy, milky-sweet center. As you chew it, the crispy outer layer combines with the smooth middle. It tastes like a toasty, very milky caramel, but it has a texture almost like fudge before it sets completely.

This one is best savored in small bites, or else the sweetness is overwhelming. Small bites allow you to really get the flavor of the bolitos de leche, instead of just tasting pure sugar....Of course, it still tastes good if you pop the whole thing in your mouth. =)

And the texture experience of putting the whole thing in your mouth is CRAZY...you get all of the thin, crunchy crust and this huge BURST of creamy leche in your mouth. Man, I wish I had one right now.

But, moving on to the next one: The ones I bought at the airport, when I realized I had almost finished the whole bag of Bolitos de Leche from the supermarket. I didn't note what brand these were.

As you may notice from the pictures, these are already pretty different from the first ones in appearance alone. Instead of a thin outer crust, these have a thick one, and a true center of caramel. The caramel is more like the traditional idea of caramel--stick-in-your-teeth chewy, whereas the other one had more a fudge-like consistency--sink-your-teeth-in creamy/chewy.

The outer layer was very firm, like an overcooked fudge. It almost crumbled when I bit into it, and then the stream of caramel unfurled from it's deep lair and tried to attack my nose.

I definitely preferred the Bolitos de Leche from Las Sevillanas. These Bolitos de Leche just didn't have that magical texture, and they didn't taste as good either. I felt that they were lower quality.

The only way to really enjoy these ones was to pop them in my mouth and eat the whole thing at once, preferably with a glass of milk! They tasted pretty good then.

Well, I hope that this has interested you! And if you ever go to Mexico City, look for Bolitos de Leche from Las Sevillanas =)

I'm going to write a little later about some of the foods I ate in Mexico, although I have limited pictures...so I will barely be scratching the surface of Mexican food! But, stay tuned =)