Ecuadorian bread “Guagua de pan”

Guaguas de pan are very traditional sweet breads from Ecuador. They are consumed on the 2nd of November to celebrate the Day of the death “El día de los muertos”. Guaguas de pan are very popular in the month of October and November. Guaguas de pan are always accompanied by the traditional drink called “Colada Morada”.

For this year I decided to make a different shapes using this recipe for Halloween. I did some skulls, frankestein, mommy, fingers, spiders, witch hats.

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Every family has their own version of Guagua de pan that has being in the family for generations, so there is always variations of how to make Guaguas de pan.

You can find them:

• With different fillings: Dulce de leche, jam.
• Or plain

For the recipe you will need the following Ingredients:

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When you have all the ingredients ready to make the recipe, the first step will be:

Make a premix

Add in a container:

• 6 gr Dry yeast
• 125 gr Warm Milk
• 75 gr All purpose flour

Mix these ingredients until you obtain a semi-liquid dough. Cover the container and let it proof in a warm area 26°C for about 1 hour. After 1 hour you will see how the premix has doubled in size and is full of bubbles, that means it is ready to use.

The next step for the process of the recipe depends on what way you want to do it. You can perform the process of this recipe in several ways:

Make the Guaguas de pan dough by hand

After waiting an hour for the premix to proof, you will place the flour on top of the counter, make a little hole in the middle, to be able to add the eggs, vanilla extract and the butter that should be at room temperature. Add the sugar, spices, salt, lemon and orange zest around the flour. Start forming the dough, add the premix. Continue kneading the dough until you get a homogeneous dough.

Make the dough using a mixer

After waiting an hour for the premix to proof. You are going to place in the mixer bowl, 450 gr of flour, brown sugar, spices, butter that must be at room temperature, lemon and an orange zest. Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Start mixing the dough using a paddle atahcment. Add the eggs one by one, beat until the eggs are incorporated into the bread dough. Finally add the premix. Beat at low speed until dough forms.

Proof the Guaguas de pan Dough

There are several ways to proof the dough.

Proof the dough in a warm area (26 ° C) for at least two hours, until you feel and see that your dough has doubled in size.

If you don’t have much time during the day, another way to proof the dough, It is to make the dough at night before you go to sleep, when you have just formed the dough, place it in a container with a lid, take it to the refrigerator and leave it until the next day. The dough will be proofed in cold during the whole night. The next day, remove the dough from the fridge, let it reach room temperature.

Shape the dough

After the dough is proofed the way you chose, you are going to portion the dough in portions of 50 and 100 gr.

Give them a round shape and cover the portions with a cloth.

Roll each portion with the help of a rolling pin and give it the desired shape.

You can give it a form of guagua (baby doll)

if you want to make different shapes for Halloween, you can make your own templates with acetate and when you are rolling the dough, you place the template on top of the dough and cut it according to the template using a knife .

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Second proof

After shaping the portions of the bread dough, let it rise in a warm area 26 ° C for about 20 minutes or until you see that the dough portions have increased in size.

Brush the portions of dough

When you see that the bread dough portions have proofed, brush each portion with a mixture of eggs and milk.

Bake

Bake the sweet breads (guaguas de pan) at 180 ° C for 20 minutes. Take them out of the oven and let them cool down completely before decorating.

Decorations

I like my guaguas de pan plain and for the decoration, I made some templates with acetate. I tempered white and dark chocolate, spread it into two different acetates, wait until it is a little bit hard and I started to cut into different shapes using a knife and the template. Let the chocolate set completily. When the guaguas de pan have cool down, melt white chocolate, put it in a piping bag and I started to stick the chocolate decorations into the bread guaguas de pan using the melted chocolate.