Día de los Difuntos - Guaguas de Pan
In honor of Día de los Difuntos, we decided to try our hand at making traditional guaguas de pan. I found a cooking website run by Layla Pujol, an Ecuadorian now living in Seattle. I followed her recipe for Guaguas de Pan and filled them with Nutella - the only change I made was I halved the recipe. You can follow our process below!
Dissolve yeast in warm milk, whisk in 1/4 cup of flour, and leave in a warm place to rise and fall, for about 1 hour. My go to warm place for proofing yeast is in the oven with the oven off but the oven light turned on.
Combine the remaining flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mixing between each addition, add the butter, then eggs, then yeast mixture and vanilla or any other flavorings (we used a mix of vanilla and almond extracts). Mix until the dough forms a large ball.
Cover bowl with a towel or plastic wrap and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
After the dough has risen, form dough balls about 3.5oz each. We got 6 balls - though the last two were closer to 3oz in weight.
Roll the dough into a flat oval shape and dollop your filling near the top of the oval.
Stretch the dough to cover the filling, pressing down to seal the edges of the dough.
Continue rolling until you reach the end of the dough.
Pinch the ends closed and shape the dough to look like a swaddled baby.
We brushed our guaguas with egg wash and decorated them before baking with dough pieces, sprinkles, raisins, and craisins.
This is what they looked like after baking.
We added a little sugar glaze to make them extra festive and sweet! I think this one ended up looking more like a guinea pig than a baby!
Inside is the creamy chocolatey Nutella surprise!
We had so much fun baking these together. I think we might have to make them again next year with a different filling. I would love to see pictures if you try to make them!
Guaguas de pan are traditionally served with Colada Morada. Check out how we made it with ingredients we had on hand.
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