To make marranitos, Jeanelle used Isabel Eats’ recipe (link) and made a few small modifications. She added some extra ginger and a bit of salt.
What are Marranitos?
Marranitos are pig shaped Mexican cookies that were traditionally made using dark cane sugar. It is easy to recreate this with brown sugar and added molasses. You can’t forget the spices too! Cinnamon being the most common.
Most of the recipes I’ve found have ginger powder added so that’s why I would consider it a gingerbread cookie but surprisingly, Wikipedia says ginger is not according to tradition. Whether you use ginger or not, these can’t disappoint.
Marranitos are also known as conchinitos or puercitos. From what I can tell all these names are just different way to say ‘little pig’ in Spanish.
When researching marranitos, I learned some new things about Mexican sweets. Pan dulce, literal translated to ‘sweet bread’, is a catch-all term for any pastry that is, well, sweet! This includes the iconic concha bread with its seashell design as well as these little piggy cookies. I always thought pan dulce was specifically breads but it includes any pastry.
How Do You Make Marranitos?
Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry ingredients. Combine and roll out into sheets. Use a pig shaped cookie cutter and bake! (Affiliate link to pig shaped cookie cutter)
Full list of ingredients and detailed steps are at the bottom of this page
Cream the butter and brown sugar and add all the wet ingredients
Mix the dry ingredients and then add them to the wet mixture and mx until you get a dough
Chill the dough in the refrigerator to help when using the pig-shaped cookie cutter to shape the little piggies.
Bake and enjoy!
Recipe
Marranitos (Mexican Gingerbread Pigs)
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- I recommend using a stand mixer but you can do everything by hand
- In your stand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together. Add one egg, molasses, milk and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined
- Lightly mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, ginger, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until well combined and a dough has formed.
- (optional) While this step is optional, I highly recommend chilling your ball of dough for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator. It will help immensely for the next step.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉
- On a surface lightly dusted with flour, roll out your dough to roughly ⅜ of an inch thick. Use the pig-shaped cookie cutter to shape the cookies placing them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- Beat a second egg to use as egg wash. Brush the tops of the cookies with the egg wash.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until you reach the desired consistency
- Remove from the oven and let cool!