Mexican Conchas {Sweet Breads}

If you are lovers of sweet, tender, spongy breads, but also with history, then you can not miss today’s recipe. I’ve been wanting to prepare the famous Mexican Conchas for a long time, but I’m going to tell you that I haven’t told you before…There are so many recipes that I want to prepare that, in spite of myself, they are always queued until their turn comes.

In any case, I’ve finally been able to prepare them and I’m only going to tell you one thing. You have to make them. I have prepared many types of dough over the years and this recipe has stolen my heart. The texture, the aroma, the sponginess, the exceptional topping… It’s almost impossible to describe in words. You have to try them so that you can understand me.

What do Mexican Conchas have that make everyone fall in love?

I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve read this, that passion for these sweet breads. If you have already tried them, I have nothing new to discover to you. But if you are one of those people who have not yet been able to enjoy them, I recommend that you do not let it pass for much longer.

Mexican Conchas are made with two types of preparations; a very spongy dough similar to a brioche and a topping made with a cookie dough. When we eat these sweet breads we find a contrast of textures and simply extraordinary flavors.

There are two dough toppings that are the most traditional or classic that are the ones I will show you how to make; vanilla and cocoa. But today you can find a wide assortment of both color and flavor.

Mexican Conchas origin.

Wheat arrived in Mexico with the Colony, it is said that after the Sad Night, Juan Garrido (an African freedman enrolled in the Spanish militia) received from Hernán Cortés a piece of land, which today is the Riviera de San Cosme, as gratitude for his services in the construction of the Hermitage of the Martyrs (San Hipólito). In this place were buried many Spaniards fallen in battle.

Garrido used the land of San Cosme as a plot where he would plant the first wheat plants in Mexico. But…

Where did Garrido get the wheat grains? According to Francisco López de Gomara in his Historia General de las Indias, they were found mixed in a shipment of rice that he was cleaning by orders of Cortés himself. Eventually, the first wheat mills appeared and the bread began to expand.

There were two kinds of bread:

• Pan florido, florido bread, made with “flor de harina“, a variety of flour that was white and only within reach of nobles, viceroys and bishops.
• Common bread or pambazo which comes from “pan”/”bread” and “basso”, i.e. “poor bread”. Made with darker and poorer quality flours. This was the bread that poor people had access to.

According to Cristina Barros and Marco Buenrostro, Mexican researchers, at that time there were regulations for flours according to their quality, weight, place of sale and water to make the breads. The breads were marked with a carved wood stamp and those badges were registered in the town hall of the towns. This information is published in the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

Many of the sweet breads made in Mexico originated in convents. If there is one thing that promotes creativity, it is the need to create something from very few resources. This is what happened to them, they managed to invent thanks to their ingenuity, ability to create and cook with what they had at hand. On the other hand, indigenous and Creole women also contributed their creativity, giving rise to a much broader repertoire.

The labor of those who made bread, at that time, were indigenous. But the owners of the bakeries and pastry shops were Spaniards. It was in this way, fusing the knowledge and creativity of some and others, that unique elaborations began to originate.

In the 18th century European, French and Italian bakers began to emigrate to Mexico.

There they opened bakeries giving rise to a wide variety of breads of very good quality and, today, are part of their cuisine as the Mexican Conchas, garibaldi or choux. In the 19th century, the Mexican concha was already part of the Ambriz bakery.

It is not known why a bread dough and a coating of sugar cookie dough came together in the same production.

It may be that this dates back to colonial times when European bakers tried to make their breads much tastier for the indigenous population by adding sugar. But wasn’t it enough to sweeten the bread itself? Perhaps it was a practical necessity that this cookie dough cover served as a protection for the sweet bread dough and thus preserve it by prolonging its shelf life.

French bakers learned a lot from German bakers who used streusel (a type of cookie dough) generously laid out on top of cakes and breads. Could it be that a Franco-German baker had a surplus of streusel and dough, and decided to combine it into one? Or is that a more recent invention? It’s still a mystery.

The same thing happens with the union of a sweet bread and a thin layer of cookie dough.

What is really interesting is that this particular type of sweet bread is found in another region of the world: Asia.

There is an elaboration that could be said to be the sister of the Mexican Concha and is the melonpan. It is a Japanese concha of very similar aspect. A very spongy dough with a cookie topping, but harder, and a pattern at the top reminiscent of a trellis.

Daniela Galarza, editor at Eater, mentions bread historians Steven L. Kaplan and Linda Civitello who comment on the possibility that both breads originated on different continents, independently of each other.

Civitello affirms that it is the result of the “dispersion of the Iberian Peninsula”. The Portuguese sailed east and the Spaniards sailed west. The latter invaded the Americas at the beginning of the 16th century and the Portuguese invaded Japan.

Neighbouring European countries used the same type of baking techniques and probably used a wide variety of recipes to convince their respective colonies to adopt wheat bread making in their customs, despite the wheat aversion among the conquered population and the preference for rice in Japan and corn in Mexico.

The mystery still persists today. Unfortunately, most conchas in Mexico (and in many Mexican bakeries in the United States) are not very appetizing since they are produced in dough for large productions, with artificial flavors, resulting in dry/hard textured and unflavored breads. The ideal thing is to acquire them in artisan bakeries or to encourage you to prepare them at home 😉