¡Feliz Día de los Muertos!

After a trip to Central Markup on Halloween, the husband was inspired--which means he's been using the bread machine again. Combine a bread machine with a holiday involving fun skeletal images, and you've got a culinary misadventure.

--The Faudie

The Halloween season has sadly passed, but at least it's followed by an event almost as cool (and I'm not talking about day-after-Halloween candy sales, as awesome as they may be). Rather, I'm referring to the Day of the Dead! And even though we don't really celebrate El Día de los Muertos in our family, how can you not appreciate a holiday that lends itself to this sort of imagery?


The impetus for this bread-making experiment was a Halloween trip to Central Markup. While enjoying the bread samples (as we're wont to do, even though it's not as exciting now that we're making so much bread of our own), one particular item stood out: the pan de muerto, the traditional bread made for the Day of the Dead. The taste was very similar to the Moroccan anise bread Angela made a few weeks ago. I wondered aloud, could we make this in a bread machine? Sure enough, Angela found a recipe in that old standby, The Bread Machine Cookbook II.

Bread of the Dead (Pan de Muertos)
1/3 C water
2 T margarine or butter
2 eggs
1/4 C sugar
3/4 t salt
1/2 t grated orange peel
1/8 t anise seeds
2 1/4 C bread flour
1 t yeast

1. Place the ingredients into the bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet or Basic option on the machine, then start the machine.
   

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided, but the author does note that this is "not one of your more dietetic loaves!" I'm guessing the 1/4 cup of sugar probably has something to do with that.

I picked up the ingredients we needed for the recipe Sunday morning (while taking advantage of those aforementioned day-after-Halloween candy sales), then prepared the bread that afternoon. As it was baking, I was somewhat worried that my bread of the dead might be dead, as it didn't look as if it would rise. In the end, though, it rose somewhat, at least enough to keep me happy.

Our finished pan de muertos wasn't as sweet as the sample we tried at the store (or as sweet as the Moroccan anise bread, for that matter), but it was still pretty tasty. And it had the cake-like texture the cookbook promised.

No sé mucho español, sino que sé utilizar Babelfish

Traditional pan de muertos is decorated with pieces of bread in the shape of bones. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to achieve that particular effect with a bread machine. ("Traditional" is not something bread machines do well.) In the spirit of this particular holiday, though, I did try to dress the loaf up with the most appropriate tea towel I could find!

Feliz Día de los Muertos, mis amigos