Mexican Dessert Recipes
From silky jericalla custard to crispy cinnamon-sugar buñuelos, discover the sweets that define Mexico’s rich dessert tradition.
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Mexican desserts weave together Indigenous ingredients like corn, pumpkin, and cacao with Spanish colonial traditions of sugar, dairy, and wheat, creating a dessert culture built on piloncillo, cinnamon, and festive traditions found at Día de los Muertos, Christmas posadas, and family celebrations across the country.
Chocoflan
Also known as pastel imposible (the impossible cake), chocoflan bakes a dense chocolate cake batter beneath a silky caramel flan batter in the same pan — and through the magic of the oven, the layers flip themselves so the flan rises to the top. Topped with a pool of cajeta, it’s become one of the most requested desserts at Mexican bakeries and family celebrations.
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A Guide to Mexican Desserts
Mexican desserts mix Spanish custards with native corn, chocolate and fruit. Chocoflan, the cake that flips flan and chocolate cake in the oven, and jericalla, Guadalajara's baked custard, are the custard side; buñuelos and capirotada, the Lent bread pudding, are the fried and baked side. From the panadería come pan de yema and marranitos, and from the street, marquesitas and paletas.
Start with the recipes above, then see the full roundup of 30 Mexican desserts, or explore all Mexican food and Latin and Spanish desserts across the site.
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Explore our complete roundup, or browse desserts from across Latin America and Spain.