Pan de Muerto

Mexican bread of the dead, scented with anise, orange zest, and orange-blossom water, crowned with bones

Origin: Mexico City & Puebla, Mexico

From the journey of Anise.

Pan de muerto appears in Mexican bakeries in the second week of October and is gone by the middle of November, and in those few weeks it is baked in quantities that no other bread in the country approaches. It is set on the ofrenda, the altar built at home and in the cemetery for Día de Muertos, alongside marigolds, candles, water, salt, and the food the dead were fond of. It is offered first and eaten afterwards, and both halves of that sentence matter. The shape is read as a body. The round loaf is the grave or the circle of life; the four strips of dough laid across it are bones, called canillas, arranged as a cross to mark the cardinal points; and the small ball at the crown is a skull, or in some tellings a teardrop. Shapes vary widely by region. Oaxaca bakes pan de yema with a painted ceramic face pressed into it, Michoacán makes pan de ofrenda in animal and human figures, and Puebla and the capital make the round, sugared, bone-topped loaf that has become the national image. The flavouring is where the anise sits. Orange-blossom water and orange zest supply the perfume, and anise seed, brought across in the first Spanish ships out of Seville and grown in New Spain within a generation of the conquest, gives the warmth underneath. The three together are what make the bread smell like the season, and a loaf missing the anise is noticeably flat. The usual origin story, that the bread replaced a pre-Hispanic offering of human sacrifice, is a colonial-era account rather than a documented history and should be treated as folklore. What can be said with confidence is that the loaf is a Spanish enriched bread that took on Mexican aromatics and Mexican meaning, and that the festival it belongs to is genuinely syncretic. It is eaten torn rather than sliced, dipped into hot chocolate or atole, and it is best on the day it is baked.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 500 g strong white bread flour
  • 7 g fast-action dried yeast
  • 100 g caster sugar
  • 1.5 tsp anise seed, lightly crushed
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt
  • 1 tbsp finely grated orange zest, from two oranges
  • 4 whole eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 whole egg yolks
  • 80 ml whole milk, warmed to blood heat
  • 2 tbsp orange-blossom water
  • 150 g unsalted butter, softened but not oily

To Finish

  • 60 g unsalted butter, melted
  • 80 g granulated sugar

Method

  1. Combine the flour, yeast, caster sugar, crushed anise seed, salt, and orange zest in a large bowl and mix well.
  2. Beat the whole eggs, yolks, warm milk, and orange-blossom water together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix to a rough dough, then knead for ten minutes until smooth and beginning to feel elastic.
  3. Add the softened butter in five or six additions, kneading thoroughly between each. The dough will become slack and greasy and will look wrong for several minutes; keep going until it is glossy, satiny, and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Allow ten to fifteen minutes for this.
  4. Cover and prove in a warm place for two to two and a half hours, until doubled. Alternatively prove overnight in the refrigerator, which improves the flavour markedly and makes the dough far easier to shape.
  5. Knock back. Remove about 180 g of dough for the decoration and set aside. Shape the remainder into a tight round and place on a lined baking sheet.
  6. From the reserved dough take a small piece for the crown and roll it into a smooth ball. Divide the rest into four and roll each into a rope about 18 cm long, rolling with the fingers spread and pressing at intervals so that the rope develops a knobbled, knuckled surface. These are the bones.
  7. Lay the four bones over the loaf in a cross, tucking the ends underneath. Press the small ball firmly into the centre where they cross, making a dimple first so it seats properly and does not fall off in the oven.
  8. Cover loosely and prove for a further hour to ninety minutes, until visibly light and puffed. Heat the oven to 170°C fan, 190°C conventional.
  9. Bake for 28 to 32 minutes, until deep golden and hollow-sounding underneath. Cover with foil after 20 minutes if the bones are darkening faster than the body.
  10. Whilst still warm, brush the whole loaf generously with the melted butter and roll or sprinkle it in the granulated sugar so that it clings all over, including the bones.

Notes

Pan de muerto is at its best within hours of baking and is noticeably past its best by the next day, which is why Mexican bakeries make it fresh every morning through the season. Day-old loaves are torn up and dipped into hot chocolate or champurrado, and that is not a compromise but a recognised way to eat it. Orange-blossom water strengths vary a great deal. Two tablespoons of a Mexican or Middle Eastern distillation is right; if using a very concentrated one, start with one. Regional variants worth knowing: Oaxacan pan de yema uses far more egg yolk, is enriched with sesame, and carries a painted ceramic face; the Michoacán version is shaped into figures and animals; and a Xochimilco style is tinted pink. Some bakers in the capital now split and fill the loaf with vanilla or cajeta cream, which is a recent commercial habit rather than a tradition.

The Gastrographer

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