Bad Bunny Turned This Simple Latin Dessert Into A Sensation

It's a Bad Bunny world, and we are here for it. Proud of his heritage, the artist known as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio to his friends, created a short video called "Debí tirar más fotos" or "I should have taken more photos" for those of us still learning the language for his upcoming Super Bowl halftime show. This film is best described as part carta de amor, part social commentary, part reflection, that blends memory and loss as it relates to his feelings about and for Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny shares many thoughts, including the mention of one food item that has social media salivating. It is a Puerto Rican pastry called a quesito, and once you try one, you will want to eat it on repeat.

It starts with puff pastry dough filled with sweet cream cheese and rolled up like a skinny cigar. The exterior is given a drizzle of a simple glaze made from syrupy sugar or honey before it is popped into the oven to bake. The result: a sweet and tangy taste with each fragile, flaky bite. Quesitos are commonplace in Puerto Rico; the word literally means "little cheese." You can find them at just about any bakery where they are enjoyed with a cup of coffee, but if you don't have travel plans, you can also make them yourself.

Don't be intimidated if you are not a baker; quesitos are simple to make and definitely worth adding to your list of old-school breakfast pastries. If you want to bring a little bit of Puerto Rican culture into your kitchen and make them yourself, check out some of the videos that popped up in response to Bad Bunny referencing this treat. One TikToker demonstrates how to make a traditional and authentic version of a quesito that is worth a watch, as does one Instagrammer.

Puff pastry is a labor of love, so if you don't have time to make it yourself, you can always buy it premade at the grocery store. While traditional quesitos are filled with cream cheese — and a good place to start if you are new to this comfort food — guava, pineapple, coconut, and jams are not unusual ingredients for these pastries. The trick is finding that point of Nirvana where the inside is creamy and sweet and the outside is crisp, buttery, delicate, crumbly, and pillowy soft. Of course, if you are worried about making mistakes that will ruin your puff pastry and, in turn, your quesitos, you can always try to find a local bakery that carries them.