Pan de Muerto

After deciding that I want to create a Dia de los Muertos inspired cook book I thought it important to research some of the major foods associated with the day. The first recipe that I am going to research in further is the very popular, sweet bread of the dead or 'Pan de Muerto'. Firstly you will need the essential items and below is a list of key ingredients:

• 1kg flour
• 200g butter
• 4 tablespoons powdered yeast
• 1 & 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 200g sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon orange peel
• 7 egg yolks
• Milk for basting
• Sugar for sprinkling

These amounts should make roughly 2 loaves of this delicious bread. Now you need to know what to do with these ingredients. Below is the step by step guide to making successful pan de muerto:

• In a bowl, mix the water and the yeast, stirring to make sure the yeast disperses well.
• Mix the flour into the yeast mixture.
• Add the sugar, salt, eggs yolk, butter and orange peel.
• Knead together until you get a greasy dough.
• Whilst kneading, slam the dough firmly onto the work-surface to make little bubbles in the mixture.
• Leave the mixture to rest for 5 hours.
• When the dough has risen, split the mixture in two. Take 1/3 from each half to one side and shape the rest into a ball.
• Roll the dough you took to one side into a sausage and form into dough 'bones'. Place these on top of the dough balls.
• Brush the top of each loaf with milk and sprinkle some sugar on top
• Cook in the oven at 200°C for 30 minutes.

For an authentic twist you can add a glaze when the bread has been cooked and removed from the oven. The ingredients you will need for this glaze are:

• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Orange Juice
• 2 Tablespoons grated Orange Peel

Once you have these ingredients follow the very simple steps below and before you know it you will have a perfect loaf of pan de muerto.

1. Mix the sugar, orange juice and grated orange peel in a saucepan or microwave dish and boil for 2 minutes (whatever you do, don't walk away and leave mixture on top of stove boiling as the liquid will boil away quickly and the heated sugar will form a rock-hard layer to your pan).
2. Pour glaze over warm bread. As an added attraction you can sprinkle some sugar (or colored sugar if you prefer) on the bread while the glaze is still soft. Then let the bread cool and the glaze harden.
3. Slice and serve the bread on Halloween or Dia de los Muertos.
4. If you prefer a different color glaze, add a few drops of your favorite food color and mix well.

Interesting Fact: It is a tradition for the baker to place a toy skeleton somewhere inside the loaf before cooking. Apparently the person who first bites the skeleton is bestowed with good luck. This activity usually takes place during picnics which are held in graveyards around the country. Some of the bread is also left untouched as an 'ofrenda' on individual gravestones, for the dead to enjoy after their 'long journey' from the other side.