Pan de Muertos - Mexican bread of the dead

Bailey wanted some extra credit for her Spanish class and she asked her teacher what she could do. Her teacher told her that she could make this bread.

November 2 is Dian de los Muertos or Day of the Dead in Mexico. And don't ask me any more about that because that's all I know on that subject.

While I don't think it turned out looking the way it was supposed to, the bread itself was good and fairly easy to make. However, Bailey said that the kids at school didn't like the liquorice taste, so if you are not a fan of that, just leave out the anise seeds.

The original recipe is here.

Ingredients
1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons anise seed
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons orange zest
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions
1.Heat the milk and the butter together in a medium saucepan, until the butter melts. Remove from the heat and add them warm water. The mixture should be around 110 degrees F (43 degrees C).
2.In a large bowl combine 1 cup of the flour, yeast, salt, anise seed and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Beat in the warm milk mixture then add the eggs and orange zest and beat until well combined. Stir in 1/2 cup of flour and continue adding more flour until the dough is soft.
3.Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. We did not do this - we just kept the dough in the mixer a while longer.
4.Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size. This will take about 1 to 2 hours. Punch the dough down and shape it into a large round loaf with a round knob on top. Place dough onto a baking sheet, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until just about doubled in size.
5.Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for about 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven let cool slightly then brush with glaze.
6.To make glaze: In a small saucepan combine the 1/4 cup sugar, orange juice and orange zest. Bring to a boil over medium heat and boil for 2 minutes. Brush over top of bread while still warm. Sprinkle glazed bread with white sugar.

Bailey used my Kitchen Aid to mix the bread up, so we skipped kneading part. We just let the Kitchen Aid do it's thing.


Here's the dough before it's first rise.


And here's the final bread, before Bailey sprinkled sugar on it.


And here it is with the sugar on top.

And a slice. You can see the anise seeds in the bread.

I think I will try to make this again - it was super easy and the consistency turned out quite nice.

Enjoy!