Tamal Dulce with Rose Mole

STEP 1: MAKE THE HORCHATA BASE (THE NIGHT BEFORE)

Toast the rice in a dry pan over medium heat for two minutes, until it smells warm rather than raw. Tip it into a blender with the blanched almonds and the canela stick, pour over the hot water and blitz for a minute. Cover and leave at room temperature overnight, or at least eight hours. In the morning blend again for a full minute, then strain through a fine sieve lined with muslin, squeezing hard. Strain a second time through the sieve alone. You want roughly 360 ml of thin, opaque, faintly sweet liquid. Warm 220 ml for the tamal batter and keep 80 ml refrigerated for the cream.

STEP 2: SOAK THE HUSKS

Cover the dried corn husks with very hot water, weight them with a plate and leave for thirty minutes until supple. Tear four husks lengthways into thin strips for ties. Shake them dry before filling — a wet husk cooks the batter unevenly.

STEP 3: MAKE THE TAMAL BATTER

Beat the softened butter with the granulated sugar and grated piloncillo on medium-high for a full five minutes, until pale and visibly aerated; this is where the crumb comes from and it cannot be shortened. Beat in the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl whisk the masa harina, baking powder, ground canela and fine sea salt. Add the dry mixture to the butter in three additions, alternating with the warm horchata base, beating on low and scraping down between each. Finish on medium for one minute. The batter should have the texture of thick buttercream and hold a soft peak. Test it: drop half a teaspoon into cold water and it should float. If it sinks, beat for another two minutes and test again.

STEP 4: FORM AND STEAM THE TAMALES

Lay a husk smooth side up, wide end towards you. Spread about 70 g of batter into a rectangle roughly 9 x 7 cm, leaving a clear margin at the narrow end. Fold the long sides over to overlap into a neat cylinder, fold the narrow tail up and tie once with a husk strip. Do not over-tighten — the batter needs room to rise. Stand the tamales upright and slightly leaning in the steamer, open ends up, packed snugly enough to support one another. Cook over a steady simmer for 50 to 60 minutes, topping up boiling water as needed and never letting the pot run dry. They are ready when the husk peels away cleanly from the surface. Rest them off the heat, still covered, for 15 minutes — unwrapped hot they slump, and the shape is part of what was praised. This makes eight: six are plated and two are insurance.

STEP 5: GRIND THE MOLE DE ROSAS

Trim the rose petals first. Pinch off the pale heel at the base of each dried petal and discard it, then weigh what is left — you want 4 g, not a molcajete handful. The heels carry most of the bitter, soapy edge that reads as too much rose. Toast the ancho chile and pasilla chile in a dry pan for about twenty seconds a side, until they smell nutty and turn pliable; do not let them darken. Cover with hot water, soak for fifteen minutes, then drain. Toast the blanched almonds, pine nuts and white sesame seeds separately, each to a shade lighter than you think, and set a teaspoon of sesame aside for plating. Work the molcajete in order: first the canela stick, whole cloves and black peppercorns to a powder; then the sesame; then the almonds and pine nuts to a coarse, oily paste; then the drained chiles. Add the grated piloncillo and the Mexican chocolate and grind until the mixture is glossy and dark. Add the rose petals last and grind them only briefly — twenty or thirty turns, no more. Ground early and long, rose turns bitter and dominates everything above it.

STEP 6: SIMMER AND TASTE THE MOLE

Scrape the paste into a small pan, whisk in the water and the fine sea salt, and bring to a bare simmer. Cook for eight to ten minutes, stirring, until it thickens to a spoonable sauce that coats the back of a spoon and falls in a slow ribbon. Take it off the heat and stir in the lime juice. Now taste it against a piece of finished tamal rather than on its own: the plate should read as a warm, dark, nutty mole with rose arriving late and lingering as perfume. If rose is the first thing you taste, loosen with a tablespoon of water and a few more drops of lime, then taste again. Only if rose is absent should you reach for the rose water, and then a drop at a time. The default is none.

STEP 7: WHIP THE HORCHATA CREAM

Whisk the cold heavy cream with the granulated sugar, vanilla extract, ground canela and fine sea salt to very soft peaks. Add the cold horchata base in a thin stream with the whisk running slowly, then finish by hand to soft, slack peaks that just hold a quenelle. Stop early — the horchata thins the cream and it will tighten as it sits. Chill until needed and re-whisk two or three strokes by hand before plating.

STEP 8: PLATE

Warm the tamales through for five minutes if they have cooled. Unwrap six and trim the ends square so each cylinder reads as a clean shape. Set one slightly off centre on a warm plate. Spoon the mole in a broad comma alongside and partly beneath it, not over it — the crumb should stay visible. Quenelle the whipped horchata cream and lay it against the tamal so a spoonful can take all three at once. Scatter the reserved toasted sesame seeds, dust a little grated piloncillo over the mole and lay a single fresh rose petal on the cream. One petal, not a scattering — the restraint is the point.