Cocotazo Yucateco

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Digital kitchen scale
• •Two heavy baking trays lined with parchment
• •Bench scraper for dividing the dough
• •Pastry brush for the egg wash
• •Damp cotton servilleta yucateca for covering the dough during rises

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix the dough

   In a large mixing bowl, whisk the bread flour, sugar, salt, and instant yeast together. In a separate bowl, beat the four egg yolks with the whole egg and the warm milk. Pour the wet into the dry and stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. Let it sit for 10 minutes. This pause hydrates the flour and the kneading goes faster.

   The milk should feel warm on your wrist, not hot. Hot milk kills the yeast and the dough never rises right. Around body temperature is the mark.
2. 2

   Add the fats and knead

   Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. Knead for two minutes to bring it together. Now add the softened butter and the manteca, a tablespoon at a time, working each addition fully into the dough before adding the next. The dough will look broken and greasy in the middle of this process. Keep going. After about ten minutes of kneading, it will come back together smooth, soft, and elastic. La manteca es el sabor. The butter gives you tenderness and the lard gives you the flavor that makes this roll a cocotazo and not a brioche.

3. 3

   First rise

   Form the dough into a tight ball and place it in a lightly greased bowl. Cover with a damp cotton servilleta. Let it rise in a warm spot until doubled, about an hour and a half. In Mérida this happens in forty-five minutes because the kitchen is humid and warm. In a cooler kitchen, give it the time it needs. Bread tells you when it is ready, not the clock.

4. 4

   Divide and shape the bases

   Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently press it flat to release the air. Divide it into twelve equal pieces of about 70 grams each. Weigh them if you can. Even rolls bake evenly. Take each piece, cup your hand over it, and roll it against the counter in a tight circle until you have a smooth tense ball with a closed bottom seam. Place the balls on two parchment-lined baking trays, leaving plenty of room between them. They will spread.

5. 5

   Form the four chuchulucos

   Here is what makes a cocotazo a cocotazo. From the leftover trimmings, or by pinching a small bead off the top of each roll, make four little chuchulucos, small dough nubs the size of a chickpea, for every roll. Wet the top of each roll lightly with a fingertip and press the four chuchulucos firmly onto the crown in a square pattern, north, south, east, west. Press them down so they stick. They should look like four small hats sitting on the dome. Without the four chuchulucos this is just a salty roll. With them it is a cocotazo. Así se hace y punto.

   The chuchulucos must be pressed down well or they pop off in the oven. Some panaderas in Mérida brush the underside of the chuchuluco with a drop of egg wash to glue it down. If yours have lifted off in the past, do this.
6. 6

   Second rise

   Cover the trays loosely with the damp cotton cloth. Let the rolls rise again until puffy and almost doubled, about 45 minutes. Press one lightly with a fingertip. The dough should spring back slowly and leave a faint dent. If it springs back quickly, it needs more time. If the dent stays, it is over-proofed and you should bake immediately.

7. 7

   Heat the oven and glaze

   While the rolls finish rising, heat the oven to 375F (190C) with a rack in the center. Beat the remaining egg yolk with the tablespoon of milk for the wash. Brush every roll gently with the egg wash, including the four chuchulucos, taking care not to deflate the dough. The yolk wash is what gives the cocotazo that deep golden, almost lacquered top that catches the afternoon light on a panaderia tray. If you like a little crunch, scatter a few flakes of sea salt across the tops. This is a salty roll. Lean into it.

8. 8

   Bake

   Bake the rolls for 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the trays once halfway through, until the tops are a deep mahogany gold and the chuchulucos are darker than the bodies. The bottoms should sound hollow when tapped. Mérida panaderas bake them dark on purpose. A pale cocotazo is an underbaked cocotazo, and underbaked is what makes a soft yeast roll instead of a cocotazo. Let the rolls cool on a rack or, if you have it, on a clean palm petate, for at least 15 minutes before tearing one open.

Chef Tips

• •The manteca is not interchangeable with butter or vegetable shortening. A cocotazo made only with butter is a brioche and a cocotazo made only with shortening is dry. The combination of butter and lard is the recipe. Get a good rendered manteca from a carniceria, not the hydrogenated kind in a tub.
• •Weigh the dough portions. Twelve rolls at 70 grams each. Even sizes bake evenly and the chuchulucos look right. A panaderia in Mérida turns out trays of identical rolls because the eye expects symmetry.
• •The cocotazo is a chopping bread, the kind you tear and dunk into a café de olla or a hot chocolate. It is not a sandwich roll and not a dinner roll. Serve it at merienda, around four or five in the afternoon, the way it is eaten on the Peninsula.
• •Day-old cocotazos do not go to waste. Split them, toast them on a comal with a little butter, and eat them with a slice of queso de bola from its red wax rind. That is how Mérida uses yesterday's bread.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be mixed and given its first rise the night before. Punch it down, cover tightly, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, divide, shape, add the chuchulucos, and proof at room temperature for an hour before baking. The flavor deepens with the cold rise.
• •Baked cocotazos keep in a paper bag at room temperature for two days. Past that, freeze them. Refresh frozen rolls in a 325F oven for six minutes and they come back close to fresh.
• •Do not refrigerate the baked rolls. The fridge stales bread faster than the counter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 83g)