Coyotas

Two thin wheat-flour crusts are joined together, sealing dark sugar from sugarcane inside. Coyotas from Sonora in northwestern Mexico are flat, round baked sweets that reveal a layer of unrefined cane sugar when broken open. The singular form is coyota. A half-moon form that rises like bread also exists in other regions, so even under the same name, the way the sugar is enclosed differs.

Coyotas in the style of Hermosillo, Sonora. Location unknown, 2010. Photo: Glane23 / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Using unrefined cane sugar for both the dough liquid and the filling

The crust uses wheat flour and a fat such as lard; some versions add yeast, and others are made with baking powder. Rather than making the base thick and puffed like bread, the dough is rolled thin and holds the sweetness inside. Today there are also recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) that use solid vegetable fat.

Piloncillo is an unrefined cane sugar made by boiling down sugarcane juice and setting it into a solid; in Sonora it is also called panocha. In one method, it is dissolved in water, and the cooled sugar liquid is used as the liquid for mixing the crust dough. The filling, on the other hand, uses finely crushed sugar mixed with a small amount of wheat flour. By dividing the sugar into a part that is turned into liquid and worked into the dough and a part kept as hard pieces sandwiched inside, the same ingredient both sweetens the crust and makes a rich filling.

Finely grated piloncillo. Some methods for coyotas sandwich crushed unrefined cane sugar inside. Location unknown, 2021. Photo: Koffermejia / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sealing two round sheets of dough at the edges

After resting, the dough is divided into small pieces and rolled into thin rounds. The filling is spread on one round, a second round is placed on top, and the edges are pressed closed with the fingers or a fork. Aligning the two layers of crust and sealing the edges firmly keeps the sugar inside.

In the recipe of Guadalupe Miranda Limón of Altar, Sonora, vegetable fat and beef tallow are used in the dough, and crushed panocha is sandwiched between two sheets of dough. After the edges are pressed, they are folded back to finish them like pleats. Even among round coyotas, the way the edges are sealed shows differences between makers.

Some recipes also make small holes in the top before baking. Because the crust is thin, the browned, toasty dough and the sugar inside can be enjoyed together. Whether the crust is made thicker or the filling more generous changes the balance between the toasty wheat and the unrefined cane sugar. Sizes are not uniform, but around 10–15 centimeters in diameter is typical.

Half-moon coyotas of the Mayo and of Todos Santos

Coyotas also appear among the recipes of the Mayo people of Sonora. In this version, a yeasted dough is rested as for bread and rolled out into an elongated shape, then topped with a filling of panocha, wheat flour and cinnamon and folded over to enclose it, like an empanada. No holes are made in the top; the coyotas are baked so that they rise slightly, and sugar and cinnamon are also added to the surface. Unlike the type sandwiched between two round sheets of dough, a single sheet is folded to wrap the filling, and the dough also rises slightly.

In Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, there are also large half-moon coyotas. The filling here is also piloncillo, but they are characterized by a puffed crust and a crisp bite. In Coahuila, too, empanadas of the same name filled with unrefined cane sugar are made.

Even among sweets that wrap sugar in a wheat crust, there are thin, flat disc shapes and half-moon shapes that puff up, leaving a space inside, and the shape and mouthfeel differ by region.

Types of filling, and eating them with ice cream

Enjoyed as a sweet treat after a meal, the coyota changes in flavor when the filling is changed. Besides traditional piloncillo, there are versions filled with cajeta, made by cooking down milk; jamoncillo, a sweet of milk and sugar; walnuts; or guava. Although the two thin crusts are common to all of them, the flavor differs with the filling: the deep taste of unrefined cane sugar, the richness of dairy, or the aroma of fruit.

“Coyotas de nieve,” with ice cream placed on top or sandwiched inside, are also made. A sweet normally eaten by biting into baked crust and room-temperature sugar can also become a dessert that is scooped up and eaten with a cold filling.

A tradition tracing the name to sweets handed out by daughters

According to the origin story told by the Sonora State Tourism Office, in the 1950s in Villa de Seris, Hermosillo, María Ochoa González, who made bread and sweets, was recommended a recipe by her friend Agustina Araiza. María baked it, adapting it to local ingredients, and when mothers had their daughters take the sweets to hand out to relatives and neighbors, the girls came to be affectionately called “coyotitas,” it is said.

The office explains coyota as a historical classification term for the daughter of an Indigenous woman and a Spanish man. It is a local account in which a colonial-era word passed through a nickname for girls to become the name of a sweet. The family’s sweet-making became a business, and the descendants are said to have also obtained permission to import into Arizona in the United States. The detailed circumstances in which the sweet got its name are still told as a local tradition.

This family story remains as an account of how Sonora’s coyotas, wrapped in two round crusts, spread. How it connects with the half-moon sweets of the Mayo and of Baja California Sur is not clear.

The sales counter of Coyotas Doña María in Hermosillo. 2024. Photo: WendyAvilesR / CC0.

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