This bread is as good as it is ghoulish.
It's pan de muerto (bread of the dead), which is a must to eat on the Day of the Dead November 2.
Mexican custom is to place the bread on an ofrenda, an altar laden with food, drink, candies, photos and other offerings that will please departed souls when they return on this special day.
These loaves were baked by Alex Peña (above), who for years produced wonderful pan dulce for La Morenita, a bakery, tortillería, market and restaurant in Cypress Park owned by his family and now closed.
Peña is currently director of product development for Bellarise, which provides commercial bakers with yeast, dough conditioners and other products. Its parent company is Pak Group, the fourth largest yeast supplier in the world.
In honor of the holiday, Peña once again baked pan de muerto, this time in his large, spotless lab in Pasadena.
The basic formula is based on brioche, he said, which reflects the French influence on Mexican baking. The ingredients are unsalted butter, sugar, eggs, nonfat dry milk, yeast, cinnamon, salt and orange peel flavor, which is a commercial product from Mexico. Home bakers would use grated orange peel.
Mexicans make light of the concept of death and so the playful breads are decorated with a skull--the ball of dough on top--and bones draped down the sides. The loaf itself is called a tumba (tomb), Peña said.
Above is a plain, undecorated pan de muerto fresh from the oven.
This loaf was brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking.
Notice the little crosses on this loaf, a motif that Peña noticed when traveling in northern Mexico. It was brushed with unsalted butter and tossed with sugar after baking.
Still another style is brushed with egg wash before baking and decorated with sugar to give a vaguely spidery effect.
Peña's company does not make and distribute bread but works with baking companies to develop and improve their products. Therefore, his pan de muerto isn't for sale.
But there's an abundance of these fun breads available right now. Every panadería will have them because they're as essential to the Day of the Dead as a turkey is to Thanksgiving.
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