A Little Baking
This weekend, I baked Pan de Muertos for the first time. Last year new_man's sister's family planned to go to Mexico on Halloween, be there for Dias de los Muertos, and learn to make sugar skulls and the bread. Sadly, Hurricane Sandy threw a wrench into those plans*, so I wasn't using an authentic, from the source recipe.
I used this one from the Times. I cut the recipe in half and made a couple of changes. I used butter instead of lard, almond milk instead of whole milk (with some almond extract for extra almondy goodness), and dry yeast instead of fresh.
I haven't baked bread in a very long time and I forgot how enjoyable it is. The dough is very gloppy and it seems impossible that it will become bread-dough like, but keep kneading and adding flour and before I knew it -- bread! I shaped the loaves traditionally, round with a cross of "bones" and a little ball on top for the skull. new_man through it looked like an octopus and he wasn't wrong.
The bread barely rose after an hour, making me very worried about my yeast choice. I had warmed the milk, but didn't actually proof the yeast in it, like I normally would. It did rise a bit in the oven and ultimately didn't taste *too* dense, but next time I should seek out the correct yeast or use one of those recipes that requires an overnight sponge. I was feeling lazy and didn't want to take 2 days to make bread.
I brushed the hot loaves with melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar.
We had one loaf at Sunday Social and I thought it was pretty good. Only slightly sweet and, like I said, not too dense. I've never had the real thing so I've got nothing to compare.
*They did eventually get there, but after the holiday.
I used this one from the Times. I cut the recipe in half and made a couple of changes. I used butter instead of lard, almond milk instead of whole milk (with some almond extract for extra almondy goodness), and dry yeast instead of fresh.
I haven't baked bread in a very long time and I forgot how enjoyable it is. The dough is very gloppy and it seems impossible that it will become bread-dough like, but keep kneading and adding flour and before I knew it -- bread! I shaped the loaves traditionally, round with a cross of "bones" and a little ball on top for the skull. new_man through it looked like an octopus and he wasn't wrong.
The bread barely rose after an hour, making me very worried about my yeast choice. I had warmed the milk, but didn't actually proof the yeast in it, like I normally would. It did rise a bit in the oven and ultimately didn't taste *too* dense, but next time I should seek out the correct yeast or use one of those recipes that requires an overnight sponge. I was feeling lazy and didn't want to take 2 days to make bread.
I brushed the hot loaves with melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar.
We had one loaf at Sunday Social and I thought it was pretty good. Only slightly sweet and, like I said, not too dense. I've never had the real thing so I've got nothing to compare.
*They did eventually get there, but after the holiday.