Guava paste11/11/2023 Although my recipe has changed a bit, these cookies still remind me of my own assimilation in the United States as a teen embracing my new American culture while maintaining my “Cubanity” or Latinidad. ![]() Recently, I refined my teenage recipe, using thumbprint cookie recipes from Sally’s Baking Addiction, Allrecipes, and the Spruce Eats as reference. During that time American products, such as Philadelphia cream cheese, were imported to the island, giving Cubans a taste for them. It is rumored that the addition of cream cheese to the pastries came in part from America’s influence on the island, which lasted from the aftermath of the Spanish-American War in the late 19th century until Cuba fell to communism in 1959. Its most well-known expression is the pastelito de guayaba y queso (guava and cheese pastry), a hand-held sweet consisting of flaky puff pastry filled with thick guava paste and a swipe of cream cheese. ![]() Guava and cream cheese is a classic Cuban combination. As I grew older, I started infusing them with my own Cuban heritage, swapping out the raspberry and apricot jellies for guava paste and adding cream cheese to the cookie dough for a Cuban American thumbprint cookie. I have an affinity for jelly-filled sweets, so I naturally gravitated towards these colorful, jewel-toned treats - and it helped that they were as forgiving to make as they were delicious to eat. Still, I adored the American thumbprint cookies of my adopted homeland. While I did become an American, I don’t think it was due to the dozens of cookies I baked, or my participation in Hallmark holiday traditions. ![]() As a teenage Latina immigrant newly arrived in the United States, I remember feeling that the act of making holiday thumbprint cookies was a part of the process of becoming a “real” American, as though mastering decorated cookies would somehow help me attain citizenship.
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