Morelia has a long tradition of candy making, and the unquestioned star is Morelia fruit paste, which has its Designation of Origin.
The history of Morelia’s confectionery dates back to the golden era of convents such as Santa Rosa de Lima, where the cloistered nuns adapted traditional Spanish recipes to local ingredients, which they perfected over the centuries, creating a tradition that subsequently made its way into people’s homes.
It was precisely the Santa Rosa de Lima nuns who began selling ates, the typical candied fruit based on an original recipe for quince. And so ates became Morelia’s candy.
At the Candy and Craft Market, families hand down the candy tradition from generation to generation. There are all sorts of temptations. In addition to ates, make sure you try morelianas, crunchy caramel cookies; morelianitas, wafers with caramel; and all kinds of traditional fruit and milk confections such as candied yam, huesos de leche, covered fruit, coconut candy, guava rolls, jamoncillos, borrachitos, meringue and, of course, eggnog. Because life is too short not to indulge your sweet tooth.