10 Must-Try Latin American Desserts for Sweet Tooths

Woman eating and enjoying a dessert

Sweet Latin American snacks are great, especially if you want a quick nibble, but desserts go harder and they’re better at satisfying a sweet tooth. Desserts are just on another level and Latinos really know what they’re doing. If you haven’t explored the world of Latin American desserts yet, you’re in for a surprise and you will find plenty of new favorites. Here are 10 must-try options for sweet tooths:


Tres Leches Cake

photo of a slice of tres leches cake

Image Credits: Nestlé Recipes

Tres leches cake is a staple in Mexico and for good reason! It’s also very popular in other Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, and more. Tres leches cake is very simple but it’s bursting with flavor. It consists of a sponge cake soaked in a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream. That’s why it’s called “tres leches” (“three milks”)! The cake is topped with a type of icing known as “suspiro,” which consists of beaten egg whites and sugar, though it can sometimes be whipped cream. In some countries, a splash of rum is added to the milk mixture, which makes the flavors more complex. There’s also a version of this cake called “Cuatro Leches,” which involves caramel sauce, so it’s even sweeter and more delicious.

Pastel de Nata

photo of a cream cake

Photo by helmut.weigel on Wikimedia Commons

Pastel de nata, also known as Portuguese custard tart or egg tart, is a delicious Brazilian dessert that will blow your mind with its simplicity. It’s a flaky pastry tart filled with a creamy custard made from egg yolks, sugar, and milk. The contrast between the texture of the pastry and custard makes for a very satisfying bite and it’s perfectly sweet. It’s one of the most popular desserts in Brazil and we guess it will become one of your favorites.

Arroz con leche

Arroz con leche dessert

Photo by manuel m. v. on Flickr

If you’re used to eating rice the savory way, this dessert is a great way to get out of your comfort zone. Arroz con leche is a kind of rice pudding and it’s enjoyed all over Latin America. It’s very easy to make at home because it just consists of rice cooked in milk with sugar and cinnamon. In some countries, like Venezuela, cloves are added to the mix to deepen the flavor and make it more aromatic. It’s also common to add raisins to this, but you can skip them if you don’t like them and your arroz con leche will still be amazing. It’s milky, sweet with a hint of spice from the cinnamon and cloves, and super creamy.

Cocadas

Cocadas trays with different flavors

Photo by Bogotá, Kolumbien on Wikimedia Commons

Calling all coconut fans! This one’s for you. A cocada is a coconut confectionery made from shredded coconut that’s cooked until caramelized, condensed milk, and sugar. The result is a perfectly chewy treat that’s bursting with coconut flavor and a hint of vanilla and cinnamon. They’re particularly popular in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Cocadas are super sweet, so you might want to pair it with a nice coffee or tea, and eat just one at a time though you’ll be tempted to eat a whole bunch.

Quesillo

Quesillo venezuelan dessert

Photo by Alfredo on Wikimedia Commons

Quesillo is a traditional Venezuelan dessert that will easily become a go-to to satisfy your sweet tooth. It’s somewhere between a flan and crème brûlée, so it’s a fantastic little treat. Quesillo is very easy to make because it just consists of blending condensed milk, milk, eggs, a splash of rhum, and a little vanilla extract. The star of the quesillo is the caramel top layer, which is made with water and sugar. This dessert is soft and it melts in your mouth! The quesillo itself has a mild, vanilla flavor, but the caramel makes it more complex, smoky, and sweet. You won’t be able to have just one piece, that’s for sure.

Chocoflan

Chocoflan Mexican dessert

Photo by Christian Frausto Bernal on Flickr

Originating in Mexico, chocoflan is an absolute delight of a dessert. It consists of chocolate cake and flan, so it has two layers of pure goodness. The impressive thing about this dessert is that it defies logic because when the flan mix is poured over the cake batter, you’d think that they would mix during cooking. But no, when it comes out of the oven and it’s flipped over, there’s a perfect layer of soft flan over moist chocolate cake. The texture is amazing and the flavors go super well together!

Picarones

Picarones Peruvian dessert

Photo by medea_material on Flickr

Picarones come from Peru and they’re known for being super flavorful. This is a deep-fried dessert, so it’s similar to a donut, but it’s in a league of its own. What makes picarones special is that the dough isn’t made with just flour and eggs, it’s actually a combination of a local Peruvian squash, “macre,” and sweet potatoes. They’re shaped into rings, fried, and then covered with a sweet syrup made with chancaca (solidified molasses) and flavored with cloves, cinnamon sticks, star anise, and orange. They can also be covered only with powdered sugar, like a beignet.

Golfeados

Golfeados Venezuelan dessert

Photo by nelson suarez on Flickr

Golfeados are the Venezuelan version of sticky buns, except they’re superior. Golfeados look very similar to cinnamon rolls, but they’re nothing alike. The golfeado dough is made with plain flour, yeast, butter, and panela, which is unrefined cane sugar. Panela has a distinct flavor and it’s quite aromatic, and it’s what makes golfeados stand out. It’s similar to sweet molasses with caramel undertones. The filling of the golfeado consists of a mix of cheese, butter, and panela, which is also where the magic comes from. Last but not least, golfeados are drenched in syrup that’s also made with panela and water. This dessert is a flavor bomb and it’s deliciously sticky and sweet, often served with soft cheese on the side for a nice balance.

Chocotorta

Chocotorta Argentinian dessert

Photo by Ezarate on Wikimedia Commons

Chocolate lovers will enjoy the chocotorta from Argentina. This dessert has been popular in the country since 1982 and it’s very simple but irresistible. It consists of layering chocolate biscuits dipped in coffee and a rich filling made with dulce de leche (caramel) and mascarpone cheese. It doesn’t require any baking, it just has to sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours before you cut it. The flavor combination is insane for such a simple cake!

Bombocado

Bombocado Brazilian dessert

Photo by Rodrigo.Argenton on Wikipedia

Last but not least, we have the bombocado, which translates to “good bite.” It’s another Brazilian dessert, but this one’s made with flour, grated coconut, shredded parmesan cheese, milk, eggs, and sugar. This mixture is baked and then sliced, so they’re perfectly sweet and salty bites that will blow you away. They’re made for Brazil’s Independence Day, but they can be enjoyed at any time of the year. They go well with whipped cream on top and a hot cup of coffee.

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Have you ever met someone who seems overly confident, self-centered, or even downright rude? Maybe they constantly talk about themselves, disregard your feelings, or even manipulate situations to their advantage. And, if you're anything like us and countless other Latinas, you might've thought, is this person just a purebred a**hole, or are they a narcissist?

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Image by Sayuri Jimenez.

Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

Like many corporate boards, Hanky Panky hadn’t publicly disclosed its board composition until recently. After the brand survived the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molina Niño decided it was time for more women, specifically more Latinas, to know what it means to be on corporate boards.

Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

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Ever noticed how September in Latin America is just one big celebration? As we wave goodbye to summer and avoid winter as long as we can, the streets come alive with parades, music, and festivities. Many Latin American countries celebrate their freedom this month, commemorating their hard-fought battles for independence from colonial domination. Let’s dive into these significant days and understand what makes each unique.

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