Turrón de Doña Pepa

Doña Pepa turrón is made from sticks of flour dough, butter, egg yolks and anise, baked and stacked in layers like a tray. Between the layers and on top goes a thick chancaca honey, the block brown sugar, perfumed with fruits and spices. The topping includes colorful sprinkles and nonpareils. It’s cut into rectangular pieces.

The sweet is inseparable from October in Lima, the purple month of the Señor de los Milagros, the image of the Christ of Pachacamilla that goes in procession through the city center. On those days turrón is sold in the streets, in bakeries and outside churches, and the Marca Perú portal calls it a symbol of Limeña Christianity.

The origin has several versions. The best-known one speaks of Josefa Marmanillo, an Afro-descendant woman enslaved in the Cañete valley, south of Lima, who at the end of the 18th century was said to have been cured of a paralysis in her arms after praying to the Christ and created the sweet in gratitude. Other versions mention a Lima cook named Josefa and a freed woman Josefa Piérola who ran a confectionery in Lima in 1880. None have definitive proof.

In the 19th century, street vendors announced “the good turrones of Doña Pepa” as they walked the streets. Today there is turrón year-round, but the October tradition continues. Turrón de Doña Pepa is the name of a type of sweet, not a brand.