Melcocha

Melcocha is a candy made from cane molasses. The cane juice, or panela—the block cane sugar—is cooked until it becomes a thick syrup. After cooling slightly, the mass is thrown over a wooden hook and pulled by hand many times, until it lightens, incorporates air and becomes elastic. It is then cut into bars or shaped into various forms.

The Ecuador Ministry of Tourism describes melcocha as a handcrafted sweet found in several Latin American countries, made mainly from panela molasses. In Baños de Agua Santa it became the city’s signature sweet: vendors pull the mass at shop doorways, in view of passersby.

The tradition is linked to the valley’s sugarcane fields. Local research records pioneering families in production and about a century of commerce of the sweet, and notes that the first products were small, coin-shaped pieces used to sweeten drinks.

Many shops also sell jugo de caña, the freshly pressed cane juice, and other fruit sweets from the region. Melcocha is one of the most commonly taken souvenirs from Baños by visitors from within Ecuador.

The texture is firm and pulls when bitten, and the flavor is of cane honey.