Obleas con Arequipe
Colombia’s simplest street dessert: thin crisp wafers sandwiching arequipe, built to order and eaten in minutes. The toppings are where you make it yours.
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total
- 10 min
- serves
- 4
- level
- easy
Every Colombian plaza has an oblea cart: stacks of paper-thin wafers, a tub of arequipe, and a row of extra toppings. You point, they build, you eat it before it goes soft.
Arequipe is Colombia’s dulce de leche, and the classic move, which sounds wrong to everyone who did not grow up with it, is adding grated white cheese on top of the caramel. Sweet, salty, crisp. Trust the cart.
Obleas close out our list of the top 20 famous Colombian foods at number 20.
method
Lay out four wafers and spread each with a generous layer of arequipe, right to the edges.
Add your toppings: a little grated cheese for the classic, jam for mora, or go full cart and use several.
Top each with a second wafer and press together gently so it does not crack.
Serve immediately, while the wafers still snap.
chef's tips
- Assemble at the last moment. An oblea that sits goes from crisp to soft in about ten minutes.
- Try the cheese before you doubt it. Arequipe and salty white cheese is the combination the carts are famous for.
- No Latin grocer nearby? Obleas and arequipe both ship fine; look for the Alpina brand.