Atole de Cacahuate Oaxaqueño

This atole is from Oaxaca. Specifically from the Mixteca and the Sierra Norte, where the mornings are cold, the markets open before sunrise, and the women set up their cazos of atole next to the tamal sellers before the first bus pulls in.

Atole de cacahuate is not as famous as champurrado or atole de elote, and that is exactly the problem. Oaxaca has a dozen atoles, almost none of them known outside the state, and this one belongs in any honest accounting of the cuisine. The peanut is toasted on a comal until the skins flake and the oils release. Then it is ground fine with masa. The masa is what makes it atole and not horchata. No me vengas con atajos. If you skip the masa and just blend peanuts with milk, you have made a peanut drink. You have not made atole.

The sweetener is piloncillo, the unrefined cane sugar pressed into dark cones, sold in every mercado in Mexico. White sugar will work and it will taste like nothing. Piloncillo gives you the smoky molasses depth that ties the peanut to the canela and makes the cup taste like an Oaxacan morning. My mother kept piloncillo in a clay jar on the counter and she would shave it with a knife when she needed it. I do the same. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this cup belongs to Oaxaca.