Pan de Cazuela de Tlacolula

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Eight individual cazuelas of barro rojo from Atzompa, 4 to 5 inches across and 2 inches deep
• •Wooden artesa or large cutting board for kneading
• •Stand mixer with dough hook (optional but useful for the manteca incorporation)
• •Kitchen scale for dividing the dough evenly
• •Pastry brush for the egg yolk glaze
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Molinillo for frothing the chocolate de agua at the table

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the cazuelas

   Take eight small individual cazuelas of barro rojo from Atzompa, each about 4 to 5 inches across and 2 inches deep. New cazuelas need to be cured first, soaked in water overnight, rubbed with manteca, and warmed slowly in a low oven. The clay drinks the fat and stops cracking under heat. Once cured, grease the inside of each cazuela generously with softened manteca de cerdo. The fat is what releases the bread cleanly. Vegetable oil will not do it.

   If you cannot find barro rojo from Atzompa, use any unglazed clay or terracotta ramekin of similar size. Glazed ceramic works in a pinch but the bread will not crust the same way. The unglazed clay pulls moisture and gives the bottom that toasted crackle the panaderas in Tlacolula expect.
2. 2

   Build the dough

   In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, anise seed, orange zest, and toasted ajonjolí. Make a well in the center. Add the egg yolks, whole eggs, and warm milk. Mix on low with the dough hook, or by hand with a wooden spoon, until a shaggy dough forms. Let it rest for ten minutes. This is the autolyse. The flour drinks the liquid and the gluten starts to organize itself before you ask it to do real work.

3. 3

   Add the manteca and knead

   Add the softened manteca de cerdo a tablespoon at a time, kneading on medium speed or by hand on a lightly floured surface, waiting until each addition is fully absorbed before adding the next. This takes patience. The dough will look broken and ugly halfway through. Keep going. After 12 to 15 minutes the dough will pull together into something smooth, glossy, and elastic. La manteca es el sabor and it is also the texture. Butter will not give you the same crumb. Asi se hace y punto.

4. 4

   First rise

   Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a lightly greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth, the kind of clean cotton servilleta the panaderas use, never plastic film. Let it rise in a warm spot for 90 minutes to 2 hours, until doubled. Oaxaca's altitude makes the dough lazy. Mexico City makes it fast. Adjust by feel, not by clock. Press a finger gently into the dough. If the indent springs back slowly, it is ready.

5. 5

   Divide and shape

   Turn the dough onto a lightly floured wooden artesa or cutting board. Divide into eight equal pieces, about 130 grams each. Weigh them. Eyeballing this is how you end up with three breads that brown and five that are still pale. Round each piece into a tight ball, pinching the seam closed underneath. Let them rest five minutes so the gluten relaxes before the final shape.

6. 6

   Press into the cazuelas

   Take each ball and press it into the bottom of a greased cazuela, working it up the sides with your thumbs to form a thick bowl shape with a hollow well in the center. The walls should be about half an inch thick. Do not stretch the dough thin. The whole point of pan de cazuela is the cup that holds the cream and the fruit later, so build it like a real bowl. The dough will rise and the well will close in slightly. That is fine. You want a soft hollow, not a chasm.

7. 7

   Second rise

   Cover the filled cazuelas loosely with a cloth and let them rise for 45 minutes to an hour. The dough will swell to fill the cazuela and the well will close partway. Toward the end of the rise, position a rack in the center of the oven and heat it to 350F (175C). The slow oven is what gives this bread its tender crumb. A hot oven sets the crust before the inside has time to finish.

8. 8

   Glaze and bake

   Brush the tops of the breads gently with the egg yolk and milk glaze. Be generous but careful. Press a few extra ajonjolí seeds into the glaze if you want the panadería look. Bake on the center rack for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the tops are deep golden brown and the bread sounds hollow when tapped. The kitchen should smell like a Tlacolula bakery at six in the morning, anise and toasted yolks and warm clay.

   If your cazuelas vary in size, the smaller ones will finish first. Pull them out individually as they brown. Do not bake to a clock. Bake to color and to sound.
9. 9

   Cool and unmold

   Let the breads rest in their cazuelas for 10 minutes after they come out. The crumb is too tender to unmold hot. Run a thin knife around the edge and turn each one out onto a wire rack. If a cazuela holds its bread, slip the knife under the bottom and lift gently. The manteca should release it cleanly. Cool to just barely warm before filling, otherwise the cream weeps and the bread turns soggy.

10. 10

    Fill and serve

    Press your thumb into the soft well at the top of each bread to deepen the hollow if it has closed too much. Spoon in a generous tablespoon of crema agria oaxaqueña and top with mermelada de tejocote, fresh tuna fruit when it is in season, or a compote of whatever the mercado is selling that week. Serve with chocolate de agua frothed at the table with a molinillo. This is how Sunday looks at the tianguis in Tlacolula. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Source your cazuelas from Atzompa if you can. The barro rojo there is fired at a temperature that handles repeated oven use without cracking, and the surface texture is what gives the underside its character. Glazed ceramics work but the bread will lose the toasted bottom that defines this loaf. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Manteca de cerdo, real rendered pork lard, is non-negotiable. The hydrogenated white shortening sold as 'manteca' in some American supermarkets is not the same thing. Find a Mexican carniceria, render your own from pork fatback, or do not make this bread. The flavor and the tenderness of the crumb both come from the lard.
• •If tejocote is out of season or impossible to find where you live, do not force it. Use whatever fruit the mercado is selling: ripe peaches in summer, guava in autumn, quince paste in winter. Mexican grandmothers cook with what is in front of them, not with a Pinterest board. The crema agria oaxaqueña, on the other hand, is worth tracking down. The acidity is sharper than American sour cream and it cuts the richness of the bread.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be mixed and given its first rise the night before, then refrigerated overnight. Bring back to room temperature for one hour before shaping. The cold ferment deepens the flavor and the breads taste closer to what comes out of a wood-fired oven.
• •The unfilled breads keep at room temperature, wrapped in a clean cotton servilleta, for two days. They stale faster than enriched breads with butter because the manteca behaves differently. Refresh in a 300F oven for five minutes before filling.
• •Fill only at serving time. Cream and fruit weep into the bread within an hour and turn the crumb soggy. The bread is the cup. The filling is the drink. They meet at the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 130g)