Hojaldras Conventuales de Santa Rosa

Puebla, in the Angelopolis region, owns this bread. These hojaldras belong to the convent kitchens of the city of Puebla, especially Santa Rosa, where Dominican women turned wheat flour, eggs, sugar, manteca de cerdo, anise, and orange blossom water into the bread that appears every November for Dia de Muertos.

Do not let the word hojaldra confuse you. In Puebla, this is not French puff pastry. It is pan de muerto: round, enriched, tender, with bone-shaped strips across the top and a small knob in the center. The texture should pull apart in soft layers because the dough is worked with lard and patience. La manteca es el sabor. Butter smells pretty, yes. Manteca gives the bread its body.

I learned a version of these from a woman near the Mercado de Sabores who had an aunt who baked for a church kitchen off 5 de Mayo. She told me the dough has to rest until it feels alive under your hand. Not rushed. Not forced with too much yeast. The women in the convents understood that bread is discipline: measure, knead, wait, shape, wait again.

Serve them on talavera from Puebla with chocolate de metate or cafe de olla. White sugar on the crust, bones visible, no colored sprinkles, no novelty nonsense. Cada estado, su propia cocina.