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Oaxaca's round individual bread, laminated with manteca de cerdo and scored on top with a deep cross. Flakier than pan de manteca, perfumed with toasted anise, built to be dunked into chocolate de agua at six in the morning.
Hojaldra is from Oaxaca. Not Mexico City, not Puebla, not the generic Mexican panadería. It is a Valles Centrales bread, sold in the panaderías of Tlacolula, Zaachila, Mitla, and Miahuatlán, and it has nothing to do with the puff pastry the same word describes in Spain. The name carries over because of the lamination, the layers, but the dough is enriched with eggs and manteca and the result is a soft, flaky individual roll, scored on top with a cross, that you eat with hot chocolate de agua and nothing else.
This is not pan de yema and it is not pan de manteca. People confuse the three. Pan de yema is the everyday yolk-rich Oaxacan bread, eaten at breakfast year-round and not, no matter what the gringo travel articles say, only for Día de Muertos. Pan de manteca is denser and saltier, closer to a biscuit. The hojaldra sits between them: flakier than pan de manteca because of the lamination, less yolk-heavy than pan de yema, perfumed with anise toasted on the comal until the kitchen smells like the bakery at dawn.
My mother did not make hojaldras. She was from Jalisco and Jalisco has its own breads. I learned this one from doña Estela in Zaachila, who has been pressing dough on the same wooden artesa since 1972 and who corrected my hand position three times before she let me shape my first round. She told me the cross is not optional, the manteca is not optional, and the chocolate is not a suggestion. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Oaxaca, the morning bread teaches you what kind of day you are about to have.
The Oaxacan panadería tradition descends from the colonial fusion of Spanish wheat-baking, brought by Dominican friars who established mills in the Valles Centrales in the 16th century, with indigenous Zapotec and Mixtec techniques for working with maize and lard rendered from Spanish-introduced pigs. Hojaldra as it exists in Oaxaca today is not the puff pastry of the Spanish hojaldre, but a colonial-era enriched bread whose name preserved the Iberian word for laminated dough even as the technique adapted to local fats and tastes. The wood-fired clay ovens of towns like Tlacolula and San Antonino Castillo Velasco have produced hojaldras and pan de yema continuously for at least two centuries, and the cross score on top, often interpreted as a Catholic gesture, also functions practically: it allows the laminated dough to expand cleanly without splitting at the side.
Quantity
500 grams (about 4 cups)
plus more for dusting
Quantity
100 grams (about 1/2 cup)
Quantity
10 grams (1 tablespoon)
Quantity
8 grams (1 1/2 teaspoons)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
lightly toasted on a comal and crushed
Quantity
150 grams (about 2/3 cup)
at room temperature
Quantity
3
at room temperature
Quantity
180 milliliters (3/4 cup)
warm to the touch
Quantity
1 teaspoon
finely grated
Quantity
100 grams (about 1/2 cup)
softened
Quantity
1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
1 tablespoon
for finishing
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-purpose wheat flourplus more for dusting | 500 grams (about 4 cups) |
| granulated sugar | 100 grams (about 1/2 cup) |
| instant yeast | 10 grams (1 tablespoon) |
| fine sea salt | 8 grams (1 1/2 teaspoons) |
| anise seedslightly toasted on a comal and crushed | 1 tablespoon |
| manteca de cerdoat room temperature | 150 grams (about 2/3 cup) |
| large eggsat room temperature | 3 |
| whole milkwarm to the touch | 180 milliliters (3/4 cup) |
| orange zestfinely grated | 1 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo (for laminating)softened | 100 grams (about 1/2 cup) |
| egg wash | 1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk |
| granulated sugar for finishing | 2 tablespoons |
| ajonjolí (sesame seeds) (optional)for finishing | 1 tablespoon |
Set a dry comal over medium-low heat. Scatter the anise seeds across the surface and toast them for about 90 seconds, shaking the pan, until the kitchen smells sweet and faintly licorice. Tip them onto a cutting board and crush them with the bottom of a heavy glass. Toasted anise is what gives Oaxacan hojaldra its perfume. Use the seeds raw and the bread will taste flat.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and crushed anise. Make a well in the center. Add the room-temperature manteca de cerdo, the three eggs, the warm milk, and the orange zest. Use your hand or a wooden spoon to draw the flour into the wet ingredients until a shaggy dough forms. The manteca should disappear into the flour as you go. La manteca es el sabor, and in this bread it is also the structure.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 10 to 12 minutes by hand, or 6 to 7 in a stand mixer with the dough hook on medium-low. The dough starts sticky and tightens as the gluten develops. It is ready when it pulls cleanly off the counter and feels soft like an earlobe. Do not add more flour than you need. A dry dough makes a dry hojaldra.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with a damp cotton servilleta, and rest in a warm corner of the kitchen for 90 minutes, until visibly puffed and roughly doubled. Oaxacan kitchens at altitude are warm and dry, and the dough rises confidently. In a cold kitchen, give it more time. The dough is ready, not the clock.
Turn the risen dough onto a lightly floured surface and press it flat. Roll it into a rectangle about 40 by 25 centimeters. Spread the softened laminating manteca evenly across the surface with the back of a spoon, leaving a thin border. Fold the dough into thirds like a letter. Turn it 90 degrees, roll it back out to the same rectangle, and fold into thirds again. This is what makes a hojaldra a hojaldra. The layers of manteca between the dough are why this bread is flakier than pan de manteca. Wrap the folded block in plastic and rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Divide the rested dough into 12 equal pieces, about 90 grams each. Working with one piece at a time and keeping the others covered, roll each piece into a tight ball. Press the seam closed underneath and round it under your cupped palm against the counter until the surface is taut and smooth. Place the rounds on two parchment-lined sheet pans, leaving four fingers of space between them. They will spread.
Dip a sharp paring knife or razor blade in flour. Score each round with a deep cross on top, about 1/2 centimeter deep, two clean strokes that meet in the center. The cross is the signature of the Oaxacan hojaldra. It is not decoration. It is what lets the bread open in the oven and shows the flaky layers underneath. Asi se hace y punto.
Cover the shaped rounds loosely with a cotton cloth and let them proof at room temperature for 45 to 60 minutes, until they look softly inflated and a gentle press with a fingertip springs back slowly, leaving a faint dent. Underproofed hojaldras stay dense. Overproofed ones collapse in the oven. Watch the dough, not the timer.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 Fahrenheit) with a rack in the middle. Brush each hojaldra gently with the egg wash, working into but not flooding the scored cross. Sprinkle the tops with the finishing sugar. Scatter ajonjolí across the top if using. The Sánchez family in Miahuatlán uses sesame on theirs and the seed crackles in the oven heat.
Bake for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. The hojaldras are done when the tops are deep golden, the cross has opened cleanly, and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped. Pull them out the moment they are dark gold. A few extra minutes turns the manteca crumb dry. Cool on a wire rack for at least 15 minutes before serving. Eat with chocolate de agua, frothy from the molinillo. That is the pairing the bread was built for.
1 serving (about 110g)
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