Last Monday was Cinco de Mayo which isn’t a huge holiday here in New York but is pretty well celebrated in my home state of California. I usually do not celebrate it myself other than choosing to eat Mexican food for dinner that night. So I was somewhat surprised we were invited to a Cinco de Mayo party here in Corning. I say somewhat because the couple hosting the party moved here from San Diego (yes there are fellow native Californians here but not many). They decided they were craving some carne and pollo asada and had bags of it marinating flown in to our East Coast town to cook-up and serve with tortillas and fresh guacamole.

I thought through what I could contribute to this rare East Coast/West Coast clash event and since avocados aren’t cheap I thought I’d try making Pan Dulce (aka in Spanish sweet bread) also called Mexican Morning/Breakfast Bread or Conchas. I grew up seeing these little bread rolls being sold in the windows of many of the taquerias in my hometown. Round and yellowish on the inside the top of each roll is colorfully decorated with a flour/sugar coating in a decorative shape such as a seashell or corn. These come in different flavors: chocolate, cinnamon, strawberry, or vanilla each easily distinguished by the color of the sweet sugar on top.

I found a recipe for Pan Dulce in my trusty Bread Bible and made a few adjustments based on making this a dessert bread and not a morning breakfast bread (although some were eaten for breakfasts). I ended up making a double batch from what I’m listing below which made about 32 buns/rolls. We took at least 25 of those 32 to the park with us for the party and all of them were gone by the time we left.

I started by combining 2/3 C milk, 5 eggs, vanilla, 1 C sugar, salt, and 2 C of flour mixing them in my wonderful blue Kitchen Aid mixer. Then I added the yeast when proofed. Once the mixture was smooth I added in the cut up butter pieces about 3/4ths of a stick.

Next I slowly added in the remaining flour about 4 more cups give or take a cup or so at a time while mixing it all together on a low speed on my mixer.

Once it formed into dough it had a slightly yellow color (from all the eggs) and was a little soft but springy. I took the dough out of the mixing bowl and hand kneaded it a little on a floured surface.

Then I placed the dough in two greased deep containers ( I split my double batch in half)  then covered it with plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour and a half  at room temp..

While waiting on the dough I made the sugar topping. Of the whole process this was what I found most difficult. The recipe called for making the  powdered sugar, flour, butter, vanilla, and egg into  a crumbly mixture. It found it to be a little tougher than they probably wanted and decided to add more butter to make a more malleable texture. I split the mixture in two and added 2 TBS of cocoa powder to one and 1 TBS cinnamon to the other.

Once the dough rose I formed half of it into 3 inch balls/rolls then taking egg white I had beaten and put aside I glazed the top of the roll with the egg yolk then using a tablespoon I scooped out 1TBS of the cocoa sugar topping onto the roll and pressed it on and in. I did the same with the other half of the dough using the cinnamon sugar. Then I left the rolls to rise for 20 minutes once again covered with plastic wrap.

After this I cut (as much as I could) a design into the top sugar coating using a sharp knife then re-brushed each roll with egg yolk again before sticking the rolls in the oven. The rolls expanded quite a bit in the oven so the small cracks I made in the sugar topping created deep cracks in the coating once baked.

They turned out tasting great, even if the top sugar coating designs did not seem as appealing as the ones I grew up with. No matter what they tasted great and were well received as the only “authentic” dessert option. And the few that we kept at home were gone in less than a week.

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

If so what is your favorite holiday food/treat?