Pan de Manteca Oaxaqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Stand mixer with dough hook, or a large mixing bowl and strong hands
• •Bench scraper for dividing the dough
• •Half-sheet pan with parchment paper
• •Pastry brush for the egg yolk glaze
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Kitchen scale (recommended for even rolls)

Instructions

1. 1

   Wake the yeast in milk

   Warm the milk until it feels like the inside of your wrist, no hotter. Stir in a pinch of the sugar and the yeast. Let it sit for ten minutes, until the surface is foamy and smells like beer. If nothing happens, your yeast is dead. Throw it out and start with a new packet. No me vengas con atajos.

   Hot milk kills yeast. Cold milk does nothing. The temperature you want is the same as a baby's bath. If you cannot tell, use a thermometer: 38 to 40 degrees Celsius.
2. 2

   Build the dough

   In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center. Pour in the activated milk, the eggs, and the vanilla. Mix with your hand or a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. Now add the manteca de cerdo, soft but not melted, in three additions. Each addition has to disappear into the dough before you add the next. La manteca es el sabor. Hurry this and the bread will be greasy instead of tender.

3. 3

   Knead until smooth

   Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for ten to twelve minutes by hand, or eight minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook on medium-low. The dough is ready when it pulls away from the counter cleanly, feels supple, and springs back slowly when you press it with your finger. It should be soft, almost tacky, never sticky to the point of sticking to your palm.

4. 4

   First rise

   Lightly grease a clean bowl with a little manteca. Place the dough inside, turn it once to coat, and cover with a damp cloth. Set it somewhere warm and still, away from drafts. Let it rise for one and a half to two hours, until it has roughly doubled. Oaxaca is warm. If your kitchen is cold, the dough takes longer. Do not rush it. The flavor of pan de manteca comes from a slow first fermentation.

5. 5

   Shape the rolls

   Punch the dough down gently to release the gas. Divide it into twelve equal pieces, about 80 grams each if you want to weigh them. The panaderas at Mercado Alarii in Zaachila weigh every piece. Round each piece into a tight ball by cupping it under your palm and rolling it on the counter until the surface is smooth and the seam is sealed underneath. Place the rolls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about three fingers of space between each one. They will grow.

   If you want the traditional Oaxacan oval shape, roll each ball into a small football, slightly tapered at the ends. The round shape is fine. The oval is the panadería signature.
6. 6

   Second rise

   Cover the shaped rolls loosely with a clean cotton servilleta or a piece of plastic wrap brushed with a little manteca. Let them rise again for 45 minutes to an hour, until they are puffed and pillowy. Press one gently with your finger. The dent should fill back in slowly, not snap back instantly. If it snaps back, give it more time.

7. 7

   Glaze and seed

   Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius (375 Fahrenheit) with a rack in the center. Beat the yolk with the tablespoon of milk until smooth. Brush each roll generously with the glaze. The yolk is what gives pan de manteca its deep, glossy gold crust. Skip the glaze and the bread will look pale and amateur. Sprinkle ajonjolí across the tops while the glaze is still wet so the seeds stick.

8. 8

   Bake until burnished

   Bake for 22 to 25 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through. The rolls are done when the tops are deep amber, almost mahogany at the edges, and the bottoms sound hollow when you tap them. Internal temperature should read 88 to 90 degrees Celsius if you want certainty. Cool on a wire rack for at least fifteen minutes before tearing one open. Eat warm, with chocolate de agua or café de olla, the way they eat it in Mitla on a Sunday morning. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Use real manteca de cerdo, the kind sold in tubs at a Mexican carniceria or rendered yourself from pork fatback. The shelf-stable hydrogenated lard in the baking aisle of a supermarket is not the same fat. It will not taste right. If you cannot find it, render your own from a pound of pork fatback in two hours. It is worth the trouble.
• •Mexican vanilla, the real kind from Papantla in Veracruz, has a depth that imitation vanilla cannot reach. If you have it, use it. If not, a good pure vanilla extract will work. Do not use the cheap brown vanilla sold to tourists in Mexican airports. That is mostly coumarin and water.
• •If you want the crumb even softer and the bread to keep longer, replace 50 grams of the flour with finely milled corn flour. This is not a panadería trick, this is a home-cook trick I learned from a senora in Etla. It pulls the bread closer to the regional ingredient base.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made through the first rise, deflated, covered tightly, and refrigerated overnight. The cold rise deepens the flavor. Bring the dough back to room temperature for 45 minutes before shaping.
• •Baked rolls keep for two days at room temperature in a paper bag or wrapped in a clean cotton cloth. Do not refrigerate. The cold makes them stale. To revive day-old rolls, sprinkle lightly with water and warm in a 160-degree Celsius oven for five minutes.
• •The shaped rolls can be frozen before the second rise. Freeze them on the sheet pan, then transfer to a bag. To bake, set them on a parchment-lined pan, cover, and let rise for two to three hours from frozen before glazing and baking as written.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 90g)