This is my simple and classic family Pan de Muerto recipe. It’s sweet, yeasty, and flavored with anise seeds and fresh orange. This traditional bread is criss-crossed with skull and bones and is set on the ofrenda for Día de los Muertos.
I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos, a video, and a few more success tips.
Pan de Muerto is a sweet, soft, fragrant bread that is an important part of Dia de los Muertos traditions in Mexico and here in the US. If you’ve ever appreciated the sugar-dusted loaves but never made them before, they are quite a fun baking project that tastes even better fresh out of the oven.
Day of the Dead bread is placed on altars to lure family members who have passed away back for a visit with its enticing aroma but this delicious bread is not just for decoration. Traditional Pan de Muerto recipes always make several loaves so there’s plenty for everyone, living and deceased.
This is our traditional family recipe flavored with orange and anise seed but I’ve made many other versions over the years. If you love this recipe, give my pumpkin spice pan de muerto, chocolate anise pan de muerto, or mini pan de muertos with tropical dried fruit a try.
Tell Me About This Pan de Muerto Recipe
- Flavor: Fresh orange juice and orange zest, plus anise seed add heaps of flavor to this sweet bread. If you’d like you can also add orange blossom water which is traditional and smells unbelievable as it bakes.
- Texture: This bread has a light crust which gets brushed with melted butter and dusted with sugar that sprinkles down with every bite. The inside reveals a soft, moist crumb but sturdy enough to slice.
- Ease: This is a project especially if you don’t have much experience working with yeast doughs. You will be tempted to take shortcuts with the rising times but the dough needs lots of time to slowly rise before being decorated and baked otherwise the bread will pull apart in the oven. I would put this recipe in the advanced category but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try.
Homemade Pan de Muerto is a lovely addition to your Día de Muertos ofrenda if you have that tradition in your home and even if you don’t it is still absolutely delicious to eat with a cup of champurrado or Mexican hot chocolate.
You Need These Ingredients
This is a yeast dough and active dry yeast works great, no need for the instant yeast. As for the flour, I’ve made this bread with bread flour and all purpose flour and they both work. The bread flour will result in a chewier crumb and the all purpose gives more of a cake-like texture.
You will also need the regular baking essentials, 1/2 cup butter, large eggs, (make sure both of these are at room temperature) and sugar as well as the flavorings of kosher salt, anise seed, orange, and orange blossom water if you’d like, but that is optional.
Make A Sponge
Start by making a sponge which is like a yeast accelerator. Warm milk (whole milk or plant-based milk works too) just until it is warm to the touch (110°F-115°F) then whisk in the yeast and 1/2 cup of the flour. Let milk mixture sit in a warm spot until it is bubbly and has expanded, about 30 minutes.
Now Mix The Bread Dough
Once the sponge is ready you can start in with the dough. Cream the butter (I’ve also used vegan butter with excellent results) and the 1 cup sugar together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Then add the sponge and all the other dry ingredients except the flour.
After everything is combined, start adding 1/2 cup flour at a time and mix on low speed until the dough is thick and sticky, but not dry. It should be thicker than a cake batter but not so stiff that it is pulling away from the sides of the bowl.
At this point you can switch to the dough hook if you’d like and continue to knead the dough on medium speed for about 8 minutes.
First Rise
Grease a large bowl and place dough inside flipping the dough so it gets oiled on all sides. Cover with plastic wrap. Set in a warm place in your kitchen and let rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.
Second Rise
Punch dough down, shape into a circle again and return to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled again, another 1-2 hours.
Shaping The Dough
This recipe makes three loaves of Pan de Muerto so you need to divide the dough into 4 pieces: 1 smaller piece for the decorations, and 3 larger pieces for the loaves of bread.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour and shape all 3 of the larger pieces of dough into round balls.
Place dough balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press down to flatten into disks.
Now take the remaining dough and knead in about 3 tablespoons more flour. These pieces need to be a bit stiffer for shaping. Divide this into 9 equal pieces of dough. Take 3 of the pieces and roll them each into a small ball of dough. The remaining 6 will be your bones. Shape into a snake shape then make three indentations in each by rolling back and forth with your finger.
Brush the loaves with water in a stripe along the top where you are going to stick the first “bone”. Attach the bone to each loaf, pushing down to adhere. Brush another stripe of water along the top of each loaf to criss-cross with the other “bones”. Finally brush the place where they meet with water and adhere the three small balls of dough to that spot on each loaf.
Cover the loaves with a clean kitchen towel and set in a warm spot to rise until not doubled in size but almost doubled in size, about another hour or so.
Baking The Bread
After the last and final rise, bake bread at 350°F until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. It should be golden brown all over, about 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and set loaves on a wire rack to cool.
Decorate The Loaf
After the bread has cooled brush the top with melted butter. Coat in more granulated sugar or some people like to decorate with sesame seeds instead.
Set a loaf on your altar and slice another one for yourself to enjoy with a cup of coffee or atole.
More Día de los Muertos Ideas
- Super Easy Sugar Skulls
- Easy One-Bowl Flourless Chocolate Cake
- Tamarind Margaritas
- Pollo a la Diabla {Spicy Chicken}
Pan de Muerto Recipe
This is my simple and classic family Pan de Muerto recipe. It's sweet, yeasty, and flavored with anise seeds and fresh orange. This traditional bread is criss-crossed with skull and bones and is set on the ofrenda for Día de los Muertos.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup whole milk or plant based milk
- 4 teaspoons active dry yeast (2 7-gram packages)
- 5-6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting and shaping
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter (or vegan butter), at room temperature, plus 2 tablespoons melted for brushing
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- Juice and zest from 1 large orange
- 1 teaspoon anise seeds
- 1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- Superfine granulated sugar or sesame seeds, for decorating
- 1 teaspoon orange blossom water (optional)
Instructions
- Make sponge: Heat milk to 110°F-115°F either in a saucepan on the stove or in 30-second increments in the microwave. The milk should be just warm to the touch, not hot. Pour into a small bowl and whisk in the 4 teaspoons yeast and 1/2 cup flour. Let sit in the warmest area of your kitchen for about 20-30 minutes, until it puffs up to about double its volume.
- Mix the dough: Place the stick of room temperature butter in the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium until fluffy. Add the cup of sugar and beat for 3-4 more minutes. Add the 4 room temperature eggs one at a time, letting the first one incorporate before adding the next. Then add the orange zest and juice, the teaspoon anise seeds, the 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, and the teaspoon of orange flower water (if using).
- Mix in the flour: Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time until a soft and sticky dough forms. You want it to be on the wet side but not so soft it is like cake batter. It should be like the consistency of soft Play-Doh and sticky.
- Knead: If you'd like you can switch to the dough hook at this point and increase the speed to medium. Knead the dough for 7-10 minutes or until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and is elastic and sticky.
- First rise: Grease a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Cover with plastice wrap and leave it in the warmest area of they kitchen until it doubles in size, about 1-3 hours.
- Second rise: Punch the dough down with your fist, flip it over, cover and let it rise again for another 1-2 hours. (At this point you can also cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator. Just let it come to room temperature before proceeding.)
- Shaping: Lightly flour a work surface and flip the dough out. Cut the dough into one 8-ounce piece (this will be for the decorations) and three 14-15 ounce pieces (these will be for the loaves). Shape the three larger pieces into balls and place on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you don't have a baking sheet large enough, use 2 baking sheets. Press down on the balls to flatten into discs.
- Add 3 tablespoons of flour to the remaining piece of dough and knead it in. This piece will be used for the decorations and needs to be stiffer. Divide this piece of dough into 9 equal pieces. Roll three of them into balls for the skull. Shape the remaining pieces into snakes then create three indentations in each by rolling it back and forth with your fingers to create a bone shape.
- Brush the top of each loaf with water in a line across the loaf. Attach one bone using the water to adhere. Brush another line of water across the loaf criss-crossing where you placed the first bone and adhere the second bone to the top of each loaf. Brush the spot on top of each loaf where they meet with water and adhere the skull to each loaf. Cover the bread with a clean kitchen cloth and let rise again, another 1-2 hours.
- Bake: Heat the oven to 350°F. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until bread is firm, golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap on the bottom of the loaf. and baked through. The loaf should sound hollow when you tap on the bottom. For a more accurate test, the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer reads the center of the loaf as 195–200°F (90–93°C).
- Cool: Transfer loaves to a wire rack and let cool.
- Decorate: Brush the top of the loaves with melted butter and while holding each loaf over a bowl to catch any sugar, sprinkle the loaves generously with the superfine sugar or sesame seeds.
- Cover leftover bread tightly and store at room temperature for 6 days or in the refrigerator for up to 10 days.
Notes
- Rising Tip: To make the rising process a bit faster you can place the dough in the oven along with a bowl of boiling hot water. The steam will increase the rising time.
- Freezing Instructions: Allow the bread to cool completely, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then reheat as desired.
- Overnight Instructions: Prepare the recipe through step 9. Cover the shaped dough and refrigerate for up to about 15 hours. At least 3 hours before you need the bread the next day, remove from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise on the counter for about 1-2 hours before baking. Alternatively, you can let the dough have its 1st rise in the refrigerator overnight. Cover the dough tightly and place in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours. Remove from the refrigerator and allow the dough to fully rise for 2 more hours. Continue with step 6.
- Special Equipment: It is handy to have a kitchen scale and a instant read thermometer. The scale will make dividing the dough into equal sizes much easier and the thermometer is great for measuring the temperature of the milk and to test whether the bread is done baking.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 16 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 22Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 1mgSodium: 13mgCarbohydrates: 3gFiber: 0gSugar: 2gProtein: 1g
Darn, I wish I saw this recipe sooner! DDLM was in full swing this weekend here in LA and I would’ve liked to make this to really set the mood!