Mexican people love sweet breads. A cup of coffee accompanied with a pastry has been a long lasting tradition. There are bakeries everywhere in the monster city (my beloved Mexico City). In a radius of 1 mile around my parents’ restaurant there were 3 of them that filled the air with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread every morning. The one next door to my parents’ restaurant was owned by a Spanish guy who emigrated to Mexico in the Franco era. I remember him vividly because he used to scared me. He was a big and loud guy with a very bad temper, but his bread was always very good.
The history of that bakery sums up the history of Mexico’s bread baking. For centuries it has been shaped by the contribution of many different cultures, Spanish, French, Middle-Eastern and even Chinese. Today (according to Jane Milton, English author of the cookbook Mexican Cooking, The Authentic Taste of Mexico) Mexico’s bakeries can rival any European bakery. I have never been to Europe so I couldn’t compare them, but what I know is that Mexican bakeries are filled with rows and rows of delicious breads (mostly pastries) that are a heaven for bread lovers like myself.
What I love more about Mexican pastries is their names. We have besos (kisses), calzones (underpants), cuernos (croissants, literally horns in Spanish), trenzas (braids), corbatas (ties), pellizcadas (pinched bread), mufins (pronounced moofins, a recent introduction in bakeries), among many others. But probably the most popular pastry, and one of my favorites, is conchas (literally shells because of their shape), a round pastry topped with a sugary mixture that sometimes can be chocolate. When I made champurrado last week I really wanted to have a concha to go with it so I looked online for the recipe and this is what I found (I halved the recipe and got 6 buns):
Conchas de chocolate
The ingredients:
- 1 kg all-purpouse flour
- 2 packages dry yeast
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 TBSP vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 200 gr margarine
- 1 1/3 cups warm water
- 1 recipe chocolate coating (see below)
The how-to:
- Dissolve 2 TBSP of sugar in 3/4 cups of warm water. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit for 15 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, sift flour with the rest of the sugar and salt.
- Mix the flour and the water with the yeast. Mix in eggs one by one, vanilla and margarine. Knead until an elastic and smooth dough is formed.
- Let the dough double in a covered, greased bowl for 45 minutes to one hour.
- Punch dough in the middle and form balls the size of your palm. Place on a greased baking tray and cover with a plastic sheet. Let them double in size again, about 30 minutes in warm place.
- Cover each pastry with a circle of chocolate coating. With a sharp knife make crossing marks in the coating to form a shell patter (mine wasn’t the best job, lol)
- Bake for 30 minutes at 200°C (390°F)
For the chocolate coat:
- 1/2 cup margarine
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 TBSP cocoa powder
The how-to:
- Mix all the ingredients to form a thick paste.
- Divide it into equal parts (that will depend on how many buns you end up with).
- Pat each piece into a 3″ circle, approximately.
¡Buen provecho!
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Ginny
Sign me up! Looks delicious!
dawn
ben ben ben! now this is my kind of bread!
Simone (junglefrog)
How can you not love something so fabulous looking! I love bread, I love chocolate, so…. why wait?
Peter G
Ooh!! Sign me up as well! Bread (and pasta) is a weakness for me too…that chocolate coating on the bread looks divine. A few double espressos and I would be set!
heidileon
oh yes, there's nothing better in this world than a concha with a hot chocolate abuelita (I don't like champurrado).
…wait, there is one better way to eat conchas: filled with frijoles refritos!!! (delicia)
besos
BenHerrera
Frijoles refritos? Really? I've never tried that. I am intrigued now!
YayaOrchid
Ben, thank you so much for this recipe! I'd been looking for a concha recipe for ages., but couldn't find one. Wonder where you found yours?
Could you tell me how many cups in a kg. of flour….and how many tablespoons in your 200grams of margarine amount? I'm sorry I'm used to measuring out cups of flour and tbs. of butter.
BTW, I follow you on FB. Yours is the best Mexican cooking ezine.!
BenHerrera
I found it on Univision.com after a google search. 1 kg is about 6 cups and 200gr of butter is 1 stick, I think.
I recommend you this site http://www.onlineconversion.com/ which is an online conversion for this kind of situations.
I am trying to use the decimal system on my recipes now because it is more accurate and my readership from around the world has been growing a lot. Oh! There's also a conversion tool on the sidebar of this blog
Cheers and thanks for the comment!
BenHerrera
I found it on Univision.com after a google search. 1 kg is about 6 cups and 200gr of butter is 1 stick, I think.
I recommend you this site http://www.onlineconversion.com/ which is an online conversion for this kind of situations.
I am trying to use the decimal system on my recipes now because it is more accurate and my readership from around the world has been growing a lot. Oh! There's also a conversion tool on the sidebar of this blog
Cheers and thanks for the comment!
Pingback: Chocolate-covered Mexican pastries | What’s cooking?
Mamatkamal
It looks so delicious, I love that bread, thanks for the recipe
Ivy
Theese conchas look beautiful and they sound perfect with a cup of coffee.
pigpigscorner
This is beautiful! There's a shop that sells this in my home country, those have melted butter in the middle…so goooood…
BenHerrera
Melted butter, Oh my god I am in love now LOL
Kathy Howe
These sound yummy. I can't wait to give this recipe a try!
Hélène
So unique, these looks delicious.
Hélène (Cannes)
I love conchas and I wil try those soon … They look delicious … My father lives in Mexico City, we were there last July and I must confess that I tasted conchas in nearly every bakery we met … and we met a lot of them, believe me ! ;o) WIth a cup of rich hot chocolate, it was delightful ! Thanks for the recipe …
Hélène
kellypea
Just gorgeous! We have so many different types of yummy Mexican bread here, but I haven't seen this one. It sounds so good just like you mentioned — with a cuppa coffee. And I'll add no rush in the morning to get out the door for the day.
nina
Bread or cookie…..to me it looks like you get the best of both worlds with this !!! Beautiful!!!
YayaOrchid
Ben, I'm also going to add you to my blog list! Can't say enough good things about your site! I like your professionalism and yet your simplicity. You don't put on 'chef' airs, and your ingredients lists are always things have on hand. Thank you!
Sunshinemom
Chocolate coating on soft buns! Who wouldn't want this? This one is bookmarked. Oh, the mexican names for various bread are really funny:)
bellini valli
I imagine that bakeries in Mexico would rival any in the world Ben!!!
kat
Those look so good & bet are amazing dipped in some hot chocolate.
Diana
Wow, I'm smelling cinnamon, how can that be?
Aparna
This is bread? Thought they were cookies!
I'll be making this soon.
Btw, I thought 1 stick of butter was about 113 or 115gm?
Aparna
Ben, I made them.
Thanks for introducing them to me, ‘cos we loved them! My post’s at http://mydiversekitchen.blogspot.com/2010/01/pan-dulce-conchas-mexican-sweet-bread.html
Laura
I made these, too! I made some with chocolate on top and some with cinnamon. I was inspired by watching Sesame Street which had a film about making conchas.
sherry
I love conchas! The only problem is I am not very good at making breads…..mine came out like rocks =(
Maureen
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I made it last night and my conchas came out great! I tried to make them for the first time last month with a different recipe, but it was an epic failure. I did not want to be defeated by this delicious bread, so I found your recipe and gave it shot. Thanks again!
Ben
I’m so glad you found it helpful!