Pan de Finados Yucateco (Xtuchitos)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large wooden mixing surface or table
• •Cotton servilleta for covering the dough
• •Molcajete or spice grinder for the anise and allspice
• •Two parchment-lined baking sheets
• •Soft pastry brush for the glaze
• •Wire cooling rack or clean palm petate

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast and grind the spices

   Place the anise seeds in a small dry skillet over medium-low heat. Toast for about a minute, shaking the pan, until the seeds smell sweet and faintly licorice. Do not let them darken. Pull half the seeds aside for shaping later. Grind the rest in a molcajete or spice grinder along with the allspice and the canela. Pimienta gorda is the Yucatecan name for allspice and it is the spice that makes this bread taste like the Peninsula and not like central Mexico. Grind it fresh. The pre-ground tins at the supermarket are old and tired.

   Anise is the headline. Allspice is the bass note. The two together are what your tía in Yaxcabá means when she says the bread smells like Hanal Pixán.
2. 2

   Wake the yeast

   Warm the milk to body temperature, no hotter than the inside of your wrist. Stir in a teaspoon of the sugar and all of the yeast. Set it aside for ten minutes. It should foam and smell like fresh bread. If nothing happens, your yeast is dead. Throw it out and start again with new yeast. No me vengas con atajos. A bread that does not rise is not a bread.

3. 3

   Build the dough

   In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, the rest of the sugar, the salt, the ground spice mixture, and the naranja agria zest. Make a well in the center. Pour in the foamy milk-yeast, the three whole eggs, and the soft lard. Use your hand or a wooden spoon to draw the flour in from the edges until a shaggy dough forms. The lard goes in cold-soft, never melted. Melted lard coats the flour and stops the gluten from working.

   The dough will look greasy and uneven at first. That is correct. The kneading is what brings it together.
4. 4

   Knead until smooth

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured wooden table. Knead for ten to twelve minutes, pushing with the heel of your hand and folding the dough back on itself. It will be sticky for the first five minutes. Resist the urge to add flour. The dough is enriched with lard and eggs and it will tighten as the gluten develops. You are finished when the dough is smooth, elastic, and pulls back gently when stretched. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.

5. 5

   First rise

   Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, turn it once to coat, and cover with a cotton servilleta. Set it somewhere warm, the top of the refrigerator works well in a Mérida kitchen, and let it rise until doubled, about an hour and a half. The Peninsula is humid and the dough rises fast. In a cooler kitchen, give it two hours. It is ready when you press a finger into it and the dent holds.

6. 6

   Divide and shape the figures

   Punch the dough down gently and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide it into 16 to 20 equal pieces, about 60 grams each. Cover the pieces you are not working with so they do not dry out. Now shape. Xtuchitos are children's bread, made for the altar of the angelitos on October 31st, and the figures should feel like the work of a child's hand: muñecas (little people) with arms and legs pinched out from a single ball, iguanas with long curving tails, palomas with a beak and folded wings, perritos with four short legs. Some women in Hocabá make a small round ball topped with a cross. Each figure should be no bigger than your palm. They puff in the oven, so leave room.

   Press whole anise seeds into the dough for eyes. This is how the abuelas in Yaxcabá do it. It is decoration and it is also the seasoning catching the heat of the oven and perfuming the bread from the outside in.
7. 7

   Second rise

   Arrange the shaped figures on parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving two inches between each one. Cover loosely with the cotton servilleta and let them rise again for 45 minutes to an hour. They will not double this time. They will look puffed and relaxed. Press lightly with a finger near the base and the dough should spring back slowly, leaving a faint mark.

8. 8

   Glaze and decorate

   Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Brush each figure gently with the egg yolk and milk glaze. Be patient on the limbs and tails, they are fragile. Where tradition calls for it, dab the diluted red food coloring onto the cheeks, the lips, or in a small cross on the chest. The red is symbolic, the color of life painted onto the bread for the souls of children. Scatter a few sesame seeds across the larger figures if you like. The doves and the dogs in Hocabá often go bare.

9. 9

   Bake until golden

   Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, rotating the trays once halfway through. The figures are done when the tops are deeply golden, the bases sound hollow when tapped, and the kitchen smells of anise and allspice. Smaller figures finish first, pull them off the tray as they color. Cool on a wire rack or, in the old way, on a clean palm petate laid out on the table. Eat them with hot chocolate or with atole nuevo the morning of November 1st, when the angelitos come.

Chef Tips

• •If you cannot find naranja agria in your market, mix the zest of a regular orange with the zest of a lime. The naranja agria of Yucatán has a bitter-bright character that lives between the two. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Pimienta gorda matters. Whole allspice berries from a spice shop with turnover, ground fresh in a molcajete or a coffee grinder. The dusty pre-ground jar at the back of your cabinet has nothing left to give. If you have a Mexican market with recado vendors, that is where the good pimienta is.
• •The lard is the recipe. La manteca es el sabor. Yucatecan panaderías render their own. If you are buying it, find manteca de cerdo at a Mexican carnicería, not the shelf-stable white block at the supermarket. Butter changes the bread completely and is not what this is.
• •If you have children in the house, let them shape the figures. The xtuchitos in doña Reyna's kitchen were shaped by her seven-year-old granddaughter and they were lopsided and perfect. The unevenness of a child's hand is part of how this bread reads on the altar.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made through the first rise, punched down, wrapped tightly, and refrigerated overnight. Bring it back to room temperature for an hour before shaping.
• •Shaped figures can be frozen on a tray after the second rise, transferred to a bag, and baked directly from frozen with an extra five minutes in the oven. Useful for families preparing the full Hanal Pixán altar across three days.
• •Baked xtuchitos keep at room temperature in a cotton-lined basket for two days. After that, they harden, which is fine, the old women dunk them in hot chocolate or atole the morning of November 1st.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 62g)