Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Api con Pastel
A hot, spiced purple-corn drink thick with cinnamon and clove, served with a crisp fried cheese pastry dusted in sugar.
Bolivian · medium · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 30 min
~603 cal · 16g protein · 85g carbs · 24g fat · 4g fiber · 30g sugars · 8g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Api con pastel is a Bolivian breakfast and street-corner ritual, especially in the highlands, where a hot cup of api and a crisp fried pastry ward off the cold Andean mornings. The drink's deep purple colour is unmistakable.
Api is made from purple corn (the same maiz morado used across the Andes) simmered with water, cinnamon, clove, and orange peel, then sweetened, until it turns into a thick, warm, spiced drink. Alongside it comes pastel, a thin cheese-filled dough fried until blistered and dusted heavily with powdered sugar.
The contrast of the sweet, fragrant drink and the hot, crisp pastry is the whole comforting point. Api con pastel is nostalgic, warming food, the taste of a chilly Bolivian dawn at a market stall.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
2 cups purple corn (or purple corn flour)
8 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
4 cloves
1/2 cup sugar
1 strip orange peel
1.5 cups flour for the pastel
1/2 cup cheese for the pastel
3 cups , for frying
Instructions
1
Simmer the purple corn with the water, cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel for 25 minutes, until deeply coloured and fragrant.
2
Strain the liquid (or leave the flour version thick), sweeten with sugar, and keep the api hot.
3
For the pastel, roll the flour dough thin, tuck cheese inside, and seal the edges well.
✎ Chef’s note
Seal the pastel edges tightly and press out air pockets, so the cheese stays inside and it does not burst open in the hot oil.
4
Fry the pastel in hot oil until blistered and golden.
5
Dust the pastel with powdered sugar and serve alongside a steaming cup of api.
La Paz market breakfast stalls.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
La Paz. Mid-morning belongs to the saltena, a baked pastry holding a stew so juicy it has to be eaten standing and at an angle. Chuno is the older technology: potatoes left out to freeze on altiplano nights, trodden to press the water out and dried in the sun, after which they keep for years.
🗺️
Bolivia. Bolivia's food climbs from Amazon lowlands to the high Andes, where potatoes (in hundreds of varieties), quinoa, and hominy sustain life at altitude. Salteñas, peanut soup, and spicy llajua sauce reflect a hearty Indigenous heritage.
🌍
South America. Migration reworked the plate within living memory. Japanese arrivals in Peru and Brazil produced Nikkei cooking, Italians made pasta and pizza entirely ordinary in Argentina, Uruguay and Sao Paulo, and West African cooking carried into Bahia by the slave trade gave Brazil dende palm oil, okra and a whole ritual repertoire.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Bolivia
SilpanchoA Cochabamba plate of rice, potato, a thin breaded beef cutlet, and a fried egg over chopped salad.
SalteñasBaked pastry pockets of juicy, gently sweet meat stew, sealed with a rope-braided crimp, Bolivia's mid-morning ritual.
Thayacha (Andean Frozen Oca)An ancient Bolivian altiplano treat: sweet oca tubers boiled with cinnamon, then frozen overnight into a natural ice, sold in the winter markets of La Paz and El Alto.
Browse all Bolivia recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
Make it a Bolivia meal
Api MoradoDrink
Thayacha (Andean Frozen Oca)Dessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Api con Pastel?
A hot, spiced purple-corn drink thick with cinnamon and clove, served with a crisp fried cheese pastry dusted in sugar.
Where does Api con Pastel come from?
Api con Pastel is a Bolivian dish from La Paz, Bolivia.
Can Api con Pastel be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Api con Pastel recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Api con Pastel safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Api con Pastel take to make?
About 45 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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