“Pan De Los Muertos”: Taking The Mystery Out of The Mexican “Bread of The Dead” Jul 25 '05    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Toys LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer Learning Table From $9 LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer Tablet (Pink) From $240 The Bottom Line . When we lived in Southern California one of my favorite things to do was hit the small bakeries in Mexico. People would roll their eyes at me when I would tell them that I was heading ‘down south’ to get some baked goods. Sure I could have gone to a local shop in Barrio Logan or National City but to me the best tasting stuff came directly from the small, family owned shops outside of Tijuana. One of my favorites was the ‘pan de los muertos’, translated into English it means, simply, ‘bread of the dead’. Traditionally this is made for the “Day of The Dead” celebrations but some of the shops also make these for Halloween. It is a very simple and easy thing to make and you can decorate them any way you wish. The secret here is the topping; without it you have a rather plain piece of bread that has a little taste to it, but not much. I got the recipe from a friend who has family all over Southern California as well as in Mexico; this is the recipe that her great grandmother used and while it’s not exactly a family secret I did have to bribe her heavily to get it out of her. No doubt, these will go great with my family recipe for soul cakes! “Pan De Los Muertos” ”The Bread of The Dead” 2 cups all purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 egg 2/3 cup whole milk 1/4 cup vegetable oil 8 - 10 drops of anise [you can use vanilla if you want something smoother] Mix the two types of sugar, egg, milk, oil and flavoring in one bowl until it is creamy. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. You don’t have to use a mixer for this but you do have to make sure that everything is mixed well. From here on out it is all about creativity. You can roll this into strip and flour one side with cinnamon or roll it out and use large cookie cutters to make shapes like angels, animals, skulls or crosses. The key here is to make sure the dough is chilled and to use the largest cookie cutters possible. This will spread when baking so you won’t get a lot of detail from it - you are going after a general shape and that’s it. If creativity isn’t your thing you can rolls these into balls and flatten them a little. If you want to use cookie cutters, the Wilton Comfort Grip line is a nice size; most of them are about four inches in size and you will be able to retain most of the shape after baking. If you want a traditional ‘bread of the dead’ then you will want to use a topping to coat the cakes or shapes. This is easy to make and really adds a lot of flavor to it as well as making the tops nice and dark. 1 tablespoon all purpose flour 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 tablespoon melted butter [not margarine!] Combine these ingredients until it is nice and sloppy and there are no lumps. You can add a little food coloring to it if you want but I generally stick with what’s on the list. Brush the tops of the bread or shapes with this after you have transferred it to a cookie sheet that you have covered with parchment paper. This is the easiest way to work with the raw dough as well as the finished products. Since some of the topping might run off the dough while it is baking, the parchment paper helps when it comes time to clean up. You are going to love how this looks when it comes out of the oven, the cinnamon looks like it is shimmering on tops of the cakes! Once you have make the shapes and coated them with the topping you are going to want to bake them for about twenty minutes in a 400 degree oven. Check them from time to time to see if they are nice and golden brown, some ovens cook faster or slower depending on their true temperature. You will want to let these cool completely before you try to decorate them further. You can add almost anything to the tops of them that you like but if you are going for a traditional look, skip any festive or loud colors. A nice thing to use on these is the Wilton Color Mist. This is easy to work with and gives them a nice spray of color but again, if you are going for a true ‘bread of the dead’ look, stick with darker colors. If you want to make things simple when working with the color mist, try looking for the Stencil-A-Cookie sets; these are plastic stencils that you can place over the bread once it has cooled, just hit it with the spray and you are done! You can use a ready to decorate icing to draw skulls or crossbones on the tops, write peoples names or whatever you like. Most of the ones that I brought back from Mexico were in the shape of skulls with a minimal amount of color to them but some shops liked to add edible gold and silver decorations to the tops and sides. You can keep these for about five days before they start to get moldy or hard. Keep them in an air tight container - not a bag. If you put them in a bag chances are they will stick together and end up looking like a huge sloppy clump of dough. I made this mistake and my son said, “Mum, that is the biggest cat fur ball I have ever seen”. As gross as that may sound, sadly, it was an accurate description. Since there is no yeast in this it isn’t really a bread. It’s sort of a cross between a biscuit and bread, it’s still soft and chewy but it take a fraction of the time it would take to make ‘true’ bread. This year I am going to make these for Halloween but I am going to do it differently. I am going to use my Wilton Singles ghost and bat pans to make these then decorate them with the topping that I will add some extra sugar to so it is a little harder. Initially I wanted to bake little treats into them like they do in the Mardis Gras cakes but so far I can’t come up with anything that I can bake into the cakes that won’t melt. As always, thanks for the read! ~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~ © 2005 Freak369 Want to pull off a great Halloween party? Here are some books that might help ... The Halloween Book Crafts For Halloween Let’s Celebrate Halloween My Very Own Halloween The Story of Halloween

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