Pancitos de Camote – Guatemala

Sweet potato bread

Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and was also the core of the Mayan civilization before being conquered by the Spanish much like most of Central and South America. It’s cuisine shares a lot of similarities with the rest of Central and South America and you see dishes like arepas or papusas, with clear cross-overs with mayan influences. Maize, chillies, and black beans are all key ingredients.

For this week I chose pancitos de camote, or little sweet potato breads. As I was scrolling through different dishes the golden colour of these little pull apart breads caught my eye and I couldn’t get them out of my head. My one biggest regret is not taking a photo of how they pull apart – but needless to say I ate a lot of them on Saturday (maybe 6-7?). They are surprisingly savoury considering the fact that they have sweet potato and about 60g of sugar, but I guess the rosemary and sea salt sprinkled on top really lend themselves to the more savoury side.

I followed the recipe from mi vida en dulce which you can find here. While I followed it exactly my dough was quite wet and difficult to handle unlike hers in the video, and I was really hesitant to add more flour as I didn’t want them to come out dry. I’m really glad that I didn’t add more flour as they taste much better after they’ve been left to cool down properly, and not adding extra flour meant that they were still very moist on day two.

If you try this recipe and also find that the dough is a little on the wet and difficult side then I hope that some of the tricks I have learned over the years will help you work the dough and get some delicious bread! One of the tricks that I have learned over the years when making bread is that bread doesn’t stick to oily hands. This recipe already calls for a little melted butter which means that a little extra oil in the dough won’t hurt it. I would suggest that when you knead it or shape the little buns you cover your hands in a little oil first. The second tip I can give you is to get yourself a dough scraper – which if you bake bread often will really be your new bestie in the kitchen.

For the sweet potato pure you can either peel, dice and boil 2 medium sweet potatoes, then drain and mash – or you can bake 2 sweet potatoes until they are soft, cool them down, and scoop the flesh out of the skins and mash.

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Makes 18 breads

Ingredients

• 1 cup of sweet potato pure (see notes above on how to make it).

• 3 eggs

• 67g of granulated sugar

• 85g of melted and cooled butter

• 1 ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp of fresh or dried rosemary (optional)

• 188ml of warm milk

• 9g dried instant yeast

• 560-630 g of plain flour (weigh out 560g to start with)

• Coarse sea salt (optional)

Method

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle add the pure, 2 eggs, butter, salt, sugar and rosemary. Mix until combined.

2. Add the milk and mix until combined.

3. Add 280g of the flour and mix, then change the mixer attachment to a dough hook and add another 280g of flour and the yeast. Knead the dough for 2-3 minutes until the dough starts to come apart from the edges – if it doesn’t add a little more flour (up to 90g to make up a total of 630).

4. The dough should be stretchy and smooth.

5. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and then cover with a cloth or cling film and leave it to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

6. While the dough has its first rise grease a 9x13inch tin or pyrex glass. (Don’t worry if you don’t have one that big, I used a 7x11 and a smaller one – as my 9x11 had lasagna in it at the time!)

7. Once risen, divide the dough into 18 portions (they don’t have to be exactly the right size). Roll each portion into a ball – make sure your little balls have some surface tension. One way to achieve this is to roll them around on the counter and try to keep the same side facing down all the time, this way all the loose dough kind of gathers at the bottom and you get some surface tension on top.

8. Place them side by side in the baking dish, you can pack them in quite snugly and cover until they have doubled in size again (about 1 hour).

9. About 30-40 min into the second rise preheat the oven to 200C, and beat the remaining egg in a small bowl.

10. Once they have completed their second rise brush the top with the beaten egg and sprinkle on some of the coarse sea salt.

11. Bake for 15-20 min or until golden brown (if using 2 or more smaller dishes this may be close to 12-17 minutes).

12. Remove from the oven, cool and serve with room temperature butter.