~483 cal · 11g protein · 53g carbs · 25g fat (estimated, per serving)
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Pressed buttered bread beside café con leche
🇨🇺 Havana
The Cuban breakfast is disarmingly simple and utterly beloved: a length of soft Cuban bread split, buttered, and pressed on a plancha until crisp, then cut into fingers for dunking into café con leche. The bread drinks up the sweet coffee — a ritual repeated at every Havana counter.
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Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
Ingredients
Serves 2 —
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1/2 loaf Cuban bread (or baguette)
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3 tbsp butter
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4 shots strong espresso
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1.5 cups steamed milk
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2 tbsp sugar, to taste
Instructions
1
Split the bread lengthwise and spread the cut sides generously with butter.
2
Press in a sandwich press or heavy skillet (weighted) until flattened, crisp, and golden.
3
Pull the espresso, stir in the sugar to make it sweet, and top with the hot steamed milk.
4
Cut the pressed bread into batons and serve for dunking into the café con leche.
Havana ventanita counter tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
Havana. Crumbling grandeur and kitchens that make magic from little.
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Cuba. Sofrito, rum, and recipes that outlasted everything.
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North America. A collision of Indigenous, colonial, and immigrant tables.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
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