Colada morada and guaguas de pan: Ecuador’s Day of the Dead

Date

2 November, every year

Spanish name

Día de los Difuntos

Serves

10 to 12

Time

1 hour 30 minutes

The tradition

Día de los Difuntos, the Day of the Dead, falls on 2 November, the Catholic feast of All Souls. In Ecuador it is woven together with much older Andean customs. Families visit cemeteries, clean and decorate graves, and share food. For weeks beforehand, bakeries and kitchens across the country make the two things everyone associates with the day.

Colada morada is a warm, thick drink of purple corn flour cooked with fruit, spices and fragrant herbs. Guaguas de pan (“bread babies”, from the Kichwa word for child) are sweet rolls shaped like small swaddled figures, decorated with icing and often filled with jam. You dip the bread in the colada.

It is one of the few Ecuadorian traditions with a fixed date, which makes it a good place to start if you want to mark something Ecuadorian in the UK. Many Latin American shops and bakeries in London sell guaguas in late October.

What it tastes like

Somewhere between a spiced fruit punch and a thin, warm fruit pudding. The purple corn gives the colour and body; the blackberries and mortiño (a small Andean blueberry) give depth; naranjilla, a sharp orange fruit, gives it lift; cinnamon and cloves make it taste like late autumn.

UK substitutions

Purple corn flour is sold for the Peruvian drink chicha morada, so look in Peruvian as well as Ecuadorian shops. Blueberries stand in well for mortiño. Frozen naranjilla pulp turns up in Latin freezers; without it, add the juice of a lime and an extra handful of pineapple.

Colada morada recipe

Makes about 3 litres, serves 10 to 12

Ingredients

• 150g purple corn flour (harina de maíz morado)
• 2.5 litres water
• Peel and core of 1 pineapple, plus 250g of the flesh, diced
• 2 cinnamon sticks, 6 cloves and 6 allspice berries
• A handful of lemon verbena and a stalk of lemongrass (in place of hierba luisa and cedrón)
• Peel of 1 orange (in place of orange leaves)
• 300g blackberries
• 300g blueberries (in place of mortiño)
• 150g frozen naranjilla pulp, if you can find it
• 250g strawberries, diced
• 150–200g panela or dark muscovado sugar

Method

1. Simmer the pineapple peel and core, spices, herbs and orange peel in 2 litres of water for 25 minutes. Strain and return the liquid to the pan.
2. Blend the blackberries, blueberries and naranjilla with a little water, then push through a sieve into the pan.
3. Whisk the purple corn flour into the remaining 500ml of cold water until smooth, then pour it slowly into the pan, stirring.
4. Cook over a low heat, stirring often, for 25 to 30 minutes until it thickens to the consistency of single cream.
5. Stir in the sugar to taste, then the diced pineapple and strawberries. Serve warm with guaguas de pan.