Pan De Muertos or All Souls Bread

Submitted by Chef #208121

"Bread for Dia de los Meurtos [Day of the dead]. You can mold the bread into different shapes such as animals and angels."

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 354.88 ml flour
• 118.29 ml sugar
• 4.92 ml salt
• 14.79 ml anise seed
• 12.32 ml dry yeast
• 118.29 ml milk
• 118.29 ml water
• 118.29 ml butter
• 4 eggs
• 709.77-1064.65 ml flour

directions

1. Mix all dry ingredients together except the 3 - 4 1/2 cups of flour.
2. In a small pan, heat the milk, the water, and the butter. Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture.
3. Beat well.
4. Mix in the eggs and 1 1/2 cups of flour. Beat well.
5. Put in the rest of the flour, little by little.
6. Knead the mixture on a floured board for 9 - 10 minutes.
7. Put the dough in a greased bowl and allow it to rise until it has doubled in size (about an hour and a half at sea level).
8. Punch the dough down and reshape it with some "bone" shapes on top to decorate it.
9. Let it rise another hour.
10. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 40 minutes.
11. After baking, sprinkle it with confectioner's sugar and colored sugar.
12. Note the number of servings is hard to caculate because of the ability to mold into different shapes for each serving. I am taking a sheer guess and making it eight.

Reviews

[Kay D.]

I can't believe I made this bread. It's not something I would normally pick, since I don't particularly care for the licorice taste of anise. That being said, my DS was to get extra credit in his Spanish II class if he brought some of the bread for the Day of the Dead celebration. (sigh- I wonder why the parent has to do the work to get the child the extra credit) No, there was no way I was turning my son loose in my kitchen with flour, yeast and the oven. Are you kidding? This dough performed beautifully; I don't think I've ever had a dough that cooperated better, so satiny smooth. The rising of the bread was also perfect. The only reason I'm giving this 4 stars instead of 5 is for those darn little anise seeds, that I just don't like. I made 3 round loaves with this and dusted them liberally with powdered sugar right as they came out of the oven. I'm sorry to say I skipped the "bone" dough pieces, because I just couldn't get them to form properly to my satisfaction. (And yes, my son got the extra credit points). :)

 

[twiggyshell]

Mmmmm, so good with some orangey glaze smothered on the top of it! i halved this recipe and mixed 1/4 cup powdered sugar with 1/4 cup juice(orange mango) and boiled for 2 min, it was delish on the bread!!! mine was finished cooking after 30 min.