Pan de Burro de Tehuacan

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large wooden artesa or heavy mixing bowl
• •Donkey bread stamp for pan de burro
• •Baking stone, heavy sheet pan, or swept floor of a wood-fired horno de lena
• •Cotton servilleta for cooling and storing
• •Woven palm basket

Instructions

1. 1

   Feed the starter

   The night before baking, mix the mature sourdough starter with 125 grams water and 125 grams bread flour. Cover loosely and let it stand 8 to 10 hours, until domed, bubbly, and fragrant. If it smells sharply alcoholic and has collapsed, feed it again. Weak masa madre gives weak bread. Asi se hace y punto.

2. 2

   Dissolve the piloncillo

   Warm 200 grams of the dough water just enough to dissolve the grated piloncillo and granulated sugar. Stir until smooth, then add the remaining 275 grams water so the mixture is only lukewarm. Hot syrup kills your starter. The water should feel like a kitchen in Puebla at noon, warm but not punishing.

3. 3

   Mix the dough

   In a large bowl or wooden artesa, combine the 875 grams bread flour, all of the ripe starter, and the piloncillo water. Mix with your hand until no dry flour remains. The dough will be firm and a little sticky from the sugar. Cover and rest 30 minutes so the flour drinks properly before you ask it to behave.

4. 4

   Knead with lard

   Sprinkle the salt over the dough and smear the softened manteca de cerdo across the surface. Knead 12 to 15 minutes, folding and pressing until the lard disappears into the dough and the surface turns smoother. La manteca es el sabor. Vegetable shortening gives you a flatter mouthfeel and less keeping power. Use lard.

   If the dough smears instead of stretching, cover it for 10 minutes and continue kneading. Rest is not laziness. It lets the gluten catch up.
5. 5

   Ferment overnight

   Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or leave it in the artesa. Cover well and let it ferment 10 to 12 hours at cool room temperature, around 68 to 72F. Fold it once after the first hour. By morning it should look fuller, with small bubbles under the skin, but it does not need to double. This bread keeps its strength because the fermentation is slow.

6. 6

   Shape the rounds

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and divide it into 8 pieces, about 240 grams each. Shape each piece into a tight ball, then flatten into a thick round about 5 inches wide. Cover with a cloth and let the rounds rest 20 minutes. The surface should relax without spreading into a pancake.

7. 7

   Stamp and seed

   Press a donkey stamp firmly into the top of each round. Brush the surface lightly with water and scatter with ajonjoli. Make one small cut in the center so the loaf opens cleanly instead of tearing wherever it wants. If you do not have the stamp, make the bread anyway, but understand what is missing. The mark belongs to Miahuatlan.

8. 8

   Proof the loaves

   Set the rounds on floured boards or parchment-lined trays. Cover and proof 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, until the loaves look puffy and a fingertip pressed near the edge leaves a mark that slowly returns. Do not overproof them. Pan de burro should stand proud, not sag.

9. 9

   Bake hard

   For a home oven, place a baking stone or heavy sheet pan inside and preheat to 500F for 45 minutes. Slide in the loaves, lower the heat to 450F, and bake 25 to 30 minutes, rotating once, until the crust is deep tan, the bottoms sound hollow, and the stamped top stays visible. In a wood oven, bake as the floor heat falls from about 575F toward 500F. That hard first heat is what gives the bread its traveler's crust.

10. 10

    Cool and keep

    Cool the loaves completely on a rack or clean cloth before storing. Do not trap them hot in plastic or the crust will soften badly. Wrap in a cotton servilleta and keep in a basket at room temperature. The flavor is better the next day, when the piloncillo and masa madre settle into the crumb. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Use bread flour or a strong Mexican wheat flour from a panaderia supplier if you can find it. Weak cake flour will not give the chew this bread needs.
• •Piloncillo matters. It gives a mineral, cane-deep sweetness that white sugar cannot copy. If you use panela, fine. If you use brown sugar, know it is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •The manteca de cerdo should be clean and pale, not rancid and gray. Ask at a Mexican butcher or render it yourself from good pork fat. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
• •This is a long-keeping bread, not a soft sandwich roll. The crust should be firm, the crumb tight but tender, and the loaf should still be useful after several days.
• •A donkey stamp is part of the identity. You can bake without it, but do not pretend the mark is meaningless. The people who carried this bread to market knew exactly why they used it.

Advance Preparation

• •Feed the starter the night before mixing. It should be active by morning, not sleepy from the refrigerator.
• •The dough can ferment overnight at cool room temperature. If your kitchen is hot, shorten the fermentation to 7 or 8 hours and proof by sight, not by the clock.
• •Baked loaves keep 4 to 5 days wrapped in a cotton cloth at room temperature. They are good toasted on a comal with cafe de olla or a smear of refried beans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 210g)