Pan de muerto and more from Moreliana Panaderia

After seeing Cathy's recent post on pan de muerto (linked at the end of this post), which is a traditional bread used to celebrate Dia de los Muertos, I thought it was high time to finally try one of those at my favorite panaderia...

We're usually in the South Bay on the weekend, so TC and I headed there to check it out...

Cathy mentioned that these breads are obviously seasonal and can be found at the Mexican markets like Northgate and Pancho Villa. Those are usually boxed and mass produced. Or you can also find them baked in-house at the smaller Mexican bakeries, like Moreliana down in Chula Vista. As luck would have it, they had freshly baked pan de muerto the morning of our visit!

The breads were decorated with strips of dough which represented "bones". The tops of the bread were decorated with colored sugar (turquiose, lavender, and pink).

Here was my tray before the girl bagged it up...

Here are my purchases once again, but arranged nicely. From 11'o clock clockwise, these include the empanada de pina, the banderilla con cajeta (puff pastry stick with goat milk caramel), empanada de calabasa (filled with pumpkin and piloncillo), my favorite - coyota de piloncilla, a type of crescent that I don't know the name of, and lastly, the taquito de queso.

The total for this was $4.60 but since I didn't get a receipt, I don't know the exact breakdown but  since the pan de muerto (as seen below) was $2.50, then the rest was about .40-something cents each.

TC chose the color - purple has always been one of her favorites.

This was a pastry I hadn't tried before, the empanada de pina (pineapple empanada). I really liked the shape, especially the corners.

The filling was sweetened pineapple that was almost jelly like and sticky.

It reminded me of the Taiwanese pineapple cake filling but in bigger form and with different crust.

This is a cross section of the empanada de calabasa. I normally don't like pumpkin anything, but thank goodness this did not taste like all that pumpkin crap that's litering all the stores this time of year. The difference? It was darker looking and no pumpkin pie spice flavors! Thank you Mexico! This was pumpkin with piloncillo and maybe a tiny bit of cinnamon. Plain and simple.  The empanada was also dusted with a light coat of sugar.

This is my favorite pastry from Moreliana, the coyota de piloncillo. I don't know why I don't just get a dozen of these bad boys, but I know that would be a tad bit excessive. Seriously, these are so #$%@ good.

I need to learn how to make this so I can have it anytime. But in reality, I'm such a lazy baker especially if I have to make my own dough. I guess that's a good thing, otherwise I'd be as big as a house.

The pan de muerto waiting to be eaten...

The girl at the bakery told me that the bread had an orange flavor to it. Traditionally it is orange flavored and sometimes have anise seeds in it. In this case, there was no anise.

We all enjoyed this after lunch and ended up baking it for a few minutes in a the oven before cutting it up. I normally don't like warm sweetbread, but it gave off such a lovely smell and it tasted good with a tiny bit of butter.

For a much more comprehensive post on Pan de Muerto, please refer to Cathy's recent post on this Mexican tradition.

Previous posts on Moreliana:
the first two visits in September and my revisit with Cathy and Dennis

Now I was curious to see a few other Mexican bakeries' renditions of pan de muerto for research purposes...heh heh.