Pan de Animas Purepecha

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large mixing bowl or wooden artesa
• •Bench scraper
• •Kitchen scissors or small sharp knife for scoring
• •Wooden peel and horno de lena, or two heavy baking sheets
• •Clean cotton cloths for proofing

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the miel

   Put the grated piloncillo, water, anise seed, orange peel, and cinnamon stick in a small pot. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, just until the piloncillo dissolves and the syrup smells of anise and orange. Strain it and let it cool until warm, not hot. Hot syrup kills the ferment. Warm syrup feeds it.

2. 2

   Wake the yeast

   Stir the yeast into the warm milk and let it stand for 10 minutes, until it foams. If it sits there flat and silent, throw it out and start again. Dead yeast makes heavy bread, and no pink sugar heart will hide that.

3. 3

   Build the dough

   In a large bowl, mix the harina de trigo, salt, and orange zest. Add the masa madre de trigo, foamed yeast, eggs, and cooled piloncillo syrup. Mix with your hand until the flour drinks the liquid and the dough looks rough. Add the manteca de cerdo and butter in pieces, kneading after each addition. The dough will feel sticky first, then elastic and alive. This is enriched bread. It asks for patience.

4. 4

   Knead until smooth

   Turn the dough onto a table dusted with harina de trigo and a little fine harina de maiz. Knead 12 to 15 minutes, pushing with the heel of your hand and folding it back over itself. The dough should be soft, slightly tacky, and able to stretch without tearing immediately. The women who taught me in the Patzcuaro basin did this before dawn, with flour on their arms and the horno de lena already heating. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

   The harina de maiz is not there to turn this into cornbread. It keeps the dough from grabbing the table and gives the surface a faint grain the way some village bakers like it.
5. 5

   Proof overnight

   Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover it with cloth, and let it rise at cool room temperature for 8 to 10 hours, until swollen and fragrant. If your kitchen is hot, give it 1 hour at room temperature and then refrigerate overnight. The pata, what some western bakers call masa madre in the old Guadalajara style, gives the bread its faint sour backbone. This is not a bolillo. This is festival bread.

6. 6

   Shape the bodies

   Divide the dough into 10 pieces. Roll each piece into a short thick oval for the body, pinching one end into a head and narrowing the middle lightly for the torso. Use scissors or a small knife to mark arms and legs without cutting the figure apart. These are bodies of the souls, not the sugar-bone decoration people outside Michoacan expect. Pan de muerto in this region carries the human form. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

7. 7

   Add the hearts

   Set the shaped breads on parchment-lined trays or on a floured wooden peel if you are using a wood oven. Press a small round or oval of pink sugar paste into the chest of each figure. If you are using pink sanding sugar, brush the chest with a little egg wash and press the sugar firmly into that spot. The heart should look handmade, not factory-perfect.

8. 8

   Proof again

   Cover the breads loosely with cloth and let them rise 45 to 60 minutes, until puffed and light. Press the side gently with one finger. If the mark fills slowly, they are ready. If it springs back hard, wait. If it collapses, you waited too long. Bread teaches you to watch, not obey a clock blindly.

9. 9

   Bake the bread

   Heat the oven to 375F. Brush the breads lightly with egg wash, avoiding the pink heart if you want the color clean. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the trays once, until deep golden and firm underneath. In a horno de lena, bake after the fierce heat has settled, when the floor browns a pinch of flour without burning it black. That wood-fired edge is the old flavor. A home oven works, but know what you are missing.

10. 10

    Sugar and cool

    While the breads are still warm, brush them with melted butter and roll or sprinkle them with the granulated sugar mixed with cinnamon. Let them cool on a rack before carrying them to the table or packing them for the ofrenda. The crumb should pull apart in soft strands, with anise, orange, piloncillo, and lard speaking quietly together. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Use real harina de trigo for bread, not cake flour. You need enough strength to hold the eggs, manteca, butter, and syrup. Weak flour makes pretty dough and poor bread.
• •Manteca de cerdo is not optional if you want the tenderness of the Michoacan panaderia crumb. Butter gives aroma, but lard gives the bite. La manteca es el sabor.
• •If you do not keep masa madre, ask a serious panadero for a little pata or build a wheat starter three days ahead. You can make the bread with yeast alone, but the flavor will be flatter. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Do not shape this like the Mexico City pan de muerto with bone strips across the top. That is another region's bread. This one carries a body and a heart.
• •Anise seed should smell sweet and sharp when you crush it between your fingers. If it smells like dust, buy new anise. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado.

Advance Preparation

• •The piloncillo-anise syrup can be made up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated. Bring it back to room temperature before mixing the dough.
• •The dough should proof overnight. That is not inconvenience, that is flavor.
• •Baked pan de animas keeps well for 2 days wrapped in a clean cloth. For the ofrenda, bake the morning before it is carried to the cemetery so the crumb stays tender.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 160g)