The Philippines is home to a traditional sweet candy known as pastillas. The traditional sweet candy is made using pure milk from swamp buffaloes as its main ingredient.
Pastillas, or pastillas de leche, are typically shaped into small cylinders about the size of a finger segment. Their outer surface is coated with fine granulated sugar. On the inside, the candy has a dense texture that remains soft when bitten.
The Central Luzon region serves as the primary cradle where the traditional candy originally developed. Its preparation consists solely of fresh buffalo milk and cane sugar.
Rural Buffalo Milk Adaptation
The roots of pastillas trace back to Filipino customs documented since the Spanish colonial era in the sixteenth century. The confectionery emerged from efforts to process livestock yields in rural village settings.
Historically, Filipinos did not practice the habit of drinking fresh raw milk directly. A large portion of the archipelago’s population is biologically lactose intolerant, which triggers digestive distress when consuming unpasteurized milk.
At the time, swamp buffaloes in rural areas were primarily kept as draft animals to plow rice paddies. Apart from their physical labor, the female buffaloes also produced milk.
Due to widespread lactose intolerance that prevented direct consumption of raw milk, processing the raw milk became necessary
Transforming raw buffalo milk into solid sweets offered a practical way to utilize the daily yields. Buffalo milk was simmered and solidified into pastillas so that it could be easily digested.
Naturally, buffalo milk has a significantly higher fat and protein content than cow milk. The rich composition allows the liquid to thicken and firm up naturally when heated together with cane sugar.
Traditional San Miguel Confectionery
As its production evolved, pastillas became closely tied to the town of San Miguel in Bulacan Province. The making of the traditional candy was initially carried out independently by local buffalo farmers.
Bulacan was recognized as a major sugarcane-producing area in the Philippines while simultaneously supporting a sizable buffalo population across its agricultural plains.
The local availability of the raw materials enabled the production of pastillas, even though milk supplies could not be produced in large volumes.
A female swamp buffalo produces an average of only one liter of milk per day, with a short lactation period ranging between 150 and 200 days. The limited daily yields kept the initial making of pastillas confined to home kitchens.
To make pastillas, fresh buffalo milk and cane sugar are mixed directly in a pan over a stove. The mixture is cooked over low heat for two to three hours with constant stirring until the liquid dries into a solid paste.
Once thickened, the paste is removed from the stove and allowed to cool. After cooling down, the dough is hand-rolled into small cylinders, coated evenly over a bed of granulated sugar, and prepared for paper wrapping.
Pabalat Paper Cutting Heritage
Once coated in sugar, the pastillas are wrapped individually. In San Miguel, wrapping the candies developed into a traditional paper-cutting craft known as pabalat.
The term pabalat derives from the Tagalog language, literally meaning an outer wrapper or skin. The craft utilizes thin, vibrant sheets of Japanese tissue paper known locally as papel de japon.
The paper is folded and cut by hand using small, fine-pointed scissors. The cutouts form symmetrical lace patterns featuring floral motifs or rural landscapes, leaving long, decorative paper tails that hang from the wrapper ends.
The application of pabalat adds visual elegance to pastillas. The delicate paper patterns serve as a distinctive cultural hallmark for the buffalo milk candies of Bulacan.
Pastillas encased in decorative lace wrappers were traditionally served during meaningful community gatherings. They were custom-ordered as gift tokens for weddings, Christmas festivities, and banquets during Holy Week.
Reference:
Tsuji, T. (2021). The conventional and modern uses of water buffalo milk in the Philippines. Southeastern Philippines Journal of Research and Development, 26(2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.53899/spjrd.v26i2.152
