Lucuma Powder

Dense and warm-ochre, lucuma powder carries the dry sweetness of maple sugar crossed with sweet potato and dried apricot, with almost no tartness to it. It has so little moisture that a spoonful disappears into oats or batter without altering texture the way a wet fruit puree would. The lucuma tree grows in the dry, high valleys of the Peruvian Andes, and its fruit appears carved into pre-Columbian Moche pottery centuries before European contact — evidence enough of how long it has been gathered and prized. Old custom names it the gold of the Incas, and Andean households have long kept it dried for use through the year. Fresh lucuma is too starchy and dry to eat off the tree with any pleasure; its sweetness only concentrates once dried and milled, which also gives the powder its notably low glycemic profile compared to cane sugar. Ours comes from a single valley cooperative east of Lima, sun-ripened before harvest and dried at a low, steady heat that keeps its caramel notes from scorching. Use it as you would a mild, dry sweetener — stirred into oat bowls, whisked into cacao, folded into batter in place of a portion of sugar. A tablespoon a day is a reasonable habit, not a strict dose. Quietly sweet, the way good things often are.