The bread of the dead comes from the time of the sacrifices at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, in what was the new Spain by the year 1519, tells the ritual that the princesses were offered and the heart of the princesses was introduced in a pot with amaranth and then the ritual was headed, the Spaniards when they saw those sacrifices and they brought the wheat bread, instead of making the sacrifices, they made a dough and so that it would be like the blood of the heart of the princess, they put a pink coloring to the sugar and they put it on top, that is why it is normally known that the normal and traditional pan de muerto has pink sugar, later the recipe was modified and it is as we know it now.
How to prepare the traditional pan de muertos from Mexico
Ingredients:
500gr of wheat flour
¾ kg of sugar
½ cup warm milk
11 grams of yeast
Salt
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
2-3 teaspoons orange blossom water
zest of 2 oranges
150 gr of butter
In a bowl add the yeast, but first you have to heat the milk, 1 spoon of sugar and our own flour 3 tablespoons of flour, sugar and warm milk at 110 centigrade. To go melting all the yeast, since this diluted, it is put in a warm place about 20 minutes to rest, the ideal is that this as a sponge, then we scratch the orange...The orange arrived to Mexico with the nao of the Chinese, we had the privilege of that it arrived in addition to 350 types of orange.
It is important that we do not get to the white of the orange so that the bread does not become bitter, our 500gr of flour, around it we put the sugar, so that as we go making the dough will make it softer, first we knead the yeast with the flour and we will incorporate it, we put a little salt around it and add the yeast in the center. We will make it traditionally kneaded and at home it can be in mixer. We add the eggs little by little... we are celebrating and celebrating our dead, circular shape of the bread, as it was a pre-Hispanic ritual, it resembles the tortilla to the sun and that is why our tortilla and traditional breads are round... put it in a bowl with oil and cover it with plastic wrap for 2 hours, once it rests it is removed and we are going to knead, we separate the dough to make the 3 divisions, one for the bones and 2 for breads, so that all the folds are down, if it gets thin and does not break is that the dough is ready and we put it in our tray, we leave it another hour to rest, in the part where we will put the bones we put water to the dough so that they stick. The bones meant the bones of the deceased, that is why they are put in the bread. After resting it is put in the oven at 170 ° C, with butter we varnish the breads to put sesame seeds or sugar. It is the illusion to the 4 cardinal points also the bones. It can be accompanied with whatever you want to take, tamales, mole to put in the offerings.