Merry Christmas! ‘Tis the season to enjoy delicious food. In my family, it would not be Christmas without some tamales! Yes, in my family we enjoy all kinds of tamales. Beef. Chicken. Mexican. Salvadoran. But one of the most beloved types is the sweet tamal! So, today, I will share a sweet tamales recipe with you.
Enjoy these sweet tamales with champurrado, cafe de Olla, or Mexican hot chocolate.
How to make Sweet Tamales from scratch!
Growing up, my family would celebrate the birth of our Savior on Christmas Eve. Also known as Noche Buena. We would stay up until midnight and open presents. To be able to stay up so late, we would spend the evening playing games, singing Christmas songs, drinking warm beverages, and eating delicious food.
What types of food would we enjoy? Aside from delicious menudo, we would enjoy a variety of tamales. Most of them are savory. But the ones I will show you to make in this post are sweet.
The Tamalada
The tradition in my family is to make tamales ahead of time. For example, the women gather about 2-3 weeks before Christmas and have a tamal-making party. Also known as a tamalada. Then, we freeze the tamales. On the morning of December 24, we thaw them out. Later, we steam them to cook!
We typically make a huge batch of masa. Some masa is for beef tamales. Other masa is for chicken tamales. The last of the masa, however, is for the sweet tamales! We add sugar and sweetened condensed milk to make the masa sweet. Other ingredients can be prunes, canned pineapple (chopped), or raisins. Dates taste great too. Get creative and add whatever you would like!
If you like this sweet tamales recipe, then be sure to check out my cookbook on Amazon.
Sweet Tamales
Ingredients
- 1 cup Avocado Oil
- 3 cups Maseca
- 2 cups water
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 3 dashes food coloring optional
- 24 dried corn husks rinsed
Instructions
- Mix all of the ingredients together by hand in a large bowl.
- Once fully mixed, spread across rinsed corn husks.
- Steam in your tamalera for 2 hours.
- Enjoy!
