Coffee Pastilles

History

Pastillas de café ("coffee pastilles") is a home-confectionery recipe printed in La Mejor Cocinera. Recetas de cocina, an anonymously authored Spanish domestic cookbook published in Madrid by the house of (Saturnino) Calleja. The located early editions date to roughly the early 1920s: the Biblioteca Nacional de España holds a 1921 printing of 393 pages, and a 1923 hardcover edition carries the imprint "Editoria 'Saturnino Calleja', Madrid". As the book prints it, the recipe is a boiled sugar confection. Over high heat, butter and sugar (the text specifies 100 grams of butter and half a pound of sugar) are stirred constantly with a wooden spoon for ten minutes; a cup of concentrated coffee is added, followed by an equal quantity of boiled and cooled milk, and the whole is boiled another ten minutes. Doneness is judged by dropping a little into cold water — if it sets hard at once, the mixture is poured onto a butter-greased marble slab and, once half-cooled, cut into pastilles with a knife. The dish name describes its form rather than any special status: in Spanish a "pastilla" is "a very small portion of paste made of sugar and some pleasant-tasting substance." Beyond the recipe as the cookbook records it, the historical record consulted does not document a specific inventor, place of origin, date, or social meaning for this particular preparation.

Ingredients

• 100 grams butter
• 0.5 pound sugar
• 1 cup concentrated coffee
• 1 cup cooked and cooled milk

Instructions

1. Heat the butter and sugar together over high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for ten minutes. Add the concentrated coffee, continuing to stir, then add the same quantity of cooked and cooled milk. Continue stirring and cooking for another ten minutes.
2. To test if the mixture is ready, drop a small amount into cold water; if it hardens immediately, pour the entire batch onto a butter-greased marble slab. Once partially cooled, cut the pastilles with a knife.