Cortadillo 1 Cortadillo 2 Cortadillo 3 Cortadillo 4

Cortadillo (Mexican Pink Cake)

When I think of home, the merienda, or evening snack, is one of the first things that comes to mind. It is a time to unwind after a long day, to catch up with family and tell one story after another. In this sense, a good piece of pan dulce is the glue that holds a family together. Every Sunday after mass, we visit my Abuelita and Tía, the latter of whom bakes a different treat to share with us every week. Though all of her baked goods are delicious, the cortadillo, or "pink cake," has to be one of my all-time favorites. It is essentially a vanilla cake topped with bright pink icing and colorful sprinkles. Though most recipes dye the icing with pink food coloring, the thing I love most about my Tía's recipe is that she uses strawberry flavored Nesquik instead, giving the icing a light pink color and subtle strawberry flavor. Also known as "Pastel de Niño," or "Kid's Cake," the rich, sweet cortadillo transports me home and to the simpler times of my childhood.

Ingredients

Cake

Icing

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 340°F.
  2. Mix the eggs with the granulated sugar (can be mixed by hand or with electric mixer).
  3. Stream in the vegetable oil and mix.
  4. Add and mix together the flour and baking powder, then add and mix the 1 1/2 cups of whole milk and vanilla extract. Mix well, but be careful not to overbeat.
  5. Pour the mixture into a deep, greased pan. Bake in the oven at 340°F for about 30 minutes, or until a golden brown color.
  6. Once removed from the oven, let the cake cool completely.
  7. In a separate bowl, combine the powdered sugar and the Nesquik Strawberry Powder Mix.
  8. Add the 3 1/2 tablespoons of whole milk little by little, or until the icing reaches your desired consistency.
  9. Pour the icing over the cooled cake into an even layer.
  10. Top with rainbow sprinkles.

Recipe Site References

  1. Food Network - Another staple of my childhood. The Food Network website and its recipe pages are intuitive, allowing users to explore by providing links to other or similar recipes. Something I enjoy about the page design of each recipe is that many of the elements are arranged to be in-line, meaning that the list of ingredients is visible alongside the instructions, and hierarchies are established through the use of color and strategically applied font variations.

  2. Epicurious - Contains website layouts very similar to Food Network's, but I felt there was more of an "openness" that Food Network's site didn't have. I liked that the page title and main recipe image are arranged in-line, a move that creates a bold first impression that compels the reader to keep scrolling.

  3. Bon Appétit - This page, I felt, combined elements of the previous two websites that I was inspired by. Something that made for a more pleasant user experience was that the drop-down menu on the homepage for "Recipes" included categories and subcategories for specific types of dishes and occasions. The only in-line elements on the recipe pages themselves were the title and main image, and the rest were block elements—this allows the reader to proceed with the recipe in a chronological order.

Non-Recipe Site References

  1. The New Yorker - This website's article pages are actually designed pretty similarly to those of the recipe websites: in-line title and main image lead into the body text. It's a popular strategy for a reason, but I like that, at least on web, there's a lot of white space around the centered body text that allows my eyes to relax around the text.

  2. Juan Villanueva Portfolio - This was a site I found when doing research for a typography project. Villanueva's type designs unfold in a series of different pages, and while I don't think my recipe page would need all of these fancy animations, I think this website is a good example of creating a clear order of operations for the viewer.

  3. Tony's Chocolonely - A chocolate company with a very clear sense of branding identity. A bright color palette and a reserved use of the brightest yellow for arrows and in-site functions clarifies what the user will get from clicking them.