Pastelitos in Miami: What to Order With Your Cafecito

What should you order with your cafecito in Miami?

In Miami, the safe first order beside a cafecito is one pastelito and one croqueta. A pastelito is a small baked pastry of flaky, puff-style dough, most often filled with guava, guava and cream cheese, cream cheese, coconut, ham or seasoned ground meat. A croqueta is a breaded, fried log with a creamy centre, usually ham. One sweet, one savoury, one coffee: that order tells you more about a bakery than any review.

The rest of this guide covers what is actually in the case, how to tell the pastries apart when nothing is labelled, how to order for a group, and how to bring leftovers back to life at home. For the coffee side of the counter, the Miami Table section covers the walk-up windows and drink sizes.

What are the common types of Cuban pastelitos?

The list is shorter than the display case makes it look. The Miami food site Three Guys From Miami says pastelitos typically come in guava (guayaba), guava and cream cheese (guayaba y queso), cream cheese (queso), coconut (coco), ham (jamón) and meat (carne). Some bakeries add pineapple or other fruit, and newer shops experiment, but those six are the backbone.

What each one tastes like:

• Guava (guayaba). Dense, sweet-tart guava paste inside crisp layers. This is the one most people mean when they say "pastelito".
• Guava and cheese (guayaba y queso). The same paste with a band of sweetened cream cheese. Richer, softer, and the usual answer when someone asks for "the classic".
• Cheese (queso). Cream cheese alone, mild and sweet. A good pick for kids or anyone who finds guava too sugary.
• Coconut (coco). Shredded coconut in syrup. Chewier than the others.
• Ham (jamón). A savoury filling of ham in the same flaky dough.
• Meat (carne). Seasoned ground beef. Three Guys From Miami describes it as sweet on the outside, mildly spiced ground meat on the inside, and Wikipedia's entry on the pastry notes that it is typical to include raisins and green olives as part of the meat filling, made in a tomato-based sauce.

That sweet-outside, savoury-inside contrast surprises first-timers. Wikipedia's entry also says a sweet glaze is typically applied to the top of even savory fillings, so a shiny top tells you nothing about what is inside.

How do you tell guava from guava and cheese from meat?

There is no single shape code that every Miami bakery follows. Bakeries commonly give each filling its own shape or marking so the staff can tell them apart, but one shop's rectangle is another shop's triangle. Learn the code at the bakery you actually use, and treat anything you read online as a guess.

What does work at any bakery:

1. Look at the seams and slits. Many pastelitos show a little filling at a cut, a fold or a vent. Dark red-orange paste is guava. A pale, creamy line is cream cheese. Both colours together means guava y queso.
2. Ask, and point. "¿Cuál es el de guayaba?" (which one is guava?) works at any counter, in Spanish or English.

If you are ordering a mixed box for other people, ask the counter to bag or label the flavours separately.

What kinds of croquetas will you find in Miami?

A croqueta starts as a very thick white sauce (béchamel, made from butter, flour and milk) mixed with a chopped filling, chilled until firm, rolled into a log, breaded and fried. The Cuban-style croqueta is a slim cylinder; one Cuban home cook's recipe forms them as logs 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

The common fillings:

• Ham (jamón). The default. If a case says only "croquetas", assume ham.
• Chicken (pollo). Milder and a little softer.
• Fish or cheese variations. Wikipedia's croquette entry notes that Cuban croquetas are made from ham or chicken, that there is also a common cheese, potato and ham variation, and that they are sometimes made with fish. The same entry lists salt cod (bacalao) among the classic Spanish fillings, so you may see it labelled that way too.

You will often see croquetas eaten with saltine crackers and a squeeze of lime, and the same home recipe suggests serving them with saltines and lime wedges.

Should you go to a bakery or a ventanita?

They overlap, but they are good at different things.

A ventanita is a walk-up coffee window. Wikipedia notes that in Miami, one can find many "window cafeterias" with customers having a pastelito with coffee throughout the day. Go to the window when you want one coffee, one or two pastries, and to be on your way in five minutes. The selection is smaller.

A neighbourhood bakery is where the depth is. Three Guys From Miami is blunt that if you want the best pastelitos, you have to go to a bakery, and that supermarket versions are not the freshest. A bakery case will usually carry every flavour, several croqueta fillings, and boxes sized for an office or a family visit.

Rule of thumb: window for yourself, bakery for a group.

Does the time of day matter?

Yes, a little. Mornings are when cases are fullest and pastry is closest to the oven, so that is when you get the widest choice and the crispest layers. By mid-afternoon the popular flavours, guava y queso especially, may be thin on the ground, and what remains has been sitting under lights.

The afternoon coffee break is still very much a Miami habit, and croquetas hold up better than pastry over a long day. If you are going late, lean savoury.

How do you order pastelitos and a colada for a group?

A colada is the large shared Cuban coffee, poured out into tiny cups for everyone. It pairs naturally with a box of pastries, and a few simple ratios keep it easy:

• Two pieces per person is a comfortable snack: one pastelito, one croqueta.
• Split sweet and savoury roughly half and half. Guava y queso and plain guava go first, so weight the sweet half toward those.
• Order by the dozen if the bakery prices that way. Three Guys From Miami admits they never get out of the bakery without buying a dozen or two dozen, and the dozen is the natural unit at most counters.
• One colada per four to six people is a reasonable starting point for a quick break; order a second if the group is lingering.

For eight people, that works out to about 16 pieces: 8 sweet (say 4 guava y queso, 2 guava, 2 cheese) and 8 savoury (say 6 ham croquetas and 2 meat pastelitos), plus two coladas.

Pastry dough is wheat-based and many fillings contain dairy, so if anyone in the group has a food allergy, ask the counter directly about ingredients and shared fryers before you order.

How do you reheat pastelitos and croquetas without them going soggy?

The microwave is what ruins them. It turns flaky pastry limp and croqueta crumbs damp. Use dry heat instead.

• Oven or toaster oven. Heat it to 350°F (about 175°C). Put the pieces on a wire rack or a baking sheet, uncovered, with space between them. Pastelitos usually crisp in about 5 to 8 minutes; croquetas and meat pastelitos take longer because the centre is dense.
• Air fryer. Works well for croquetas at a similar temperature. Check early, because pastry glaze can scorch.
• Do not cover them with foil. Foil traps steam, and steam is what makes them soft.

For anything with meat, ham or cheese, food safety matters more than texture. The University of Illinois Extension advises that leftover food should be refrigerated or frozen within two hours of serving, that refrigerated leftovers should be used within 3 to 4 days, and that leftovers should be reheated to a minimum of 165 F. Check the centre of a croqueta with a food thermometer rather than trusting the colour of the crust. In Miami heat, put the box in the fridge when you get home rather than leaving it in the car or on the counter.

Let reheated pieces stand for a minute before eating. Fruit and cheese fillings hold heat far longer than the crust and can burn your mouth.

If you would rather make the savoury side of the table at home, the Latin Recipes section and the Kitchen Technique section cover Cuban cooking from the base up.

Sources

• Three Guys From Miami: Cuban pastelitos
• Wikipedia: Pastelito
• Wikipedia: Croquette
• A Sassy Spoon: Croquetas de Jamón (Cuban Ham Croquettes)
• University of Illinois Extension: Leftovers