Pan Dulce: A Celebration of Mexican Sweet and Savory Breads, Pastries, Conchas, Empanadas, and More

Pan Dulce is filled with recipes, personal stories, and songs celebrating the history, culture, and creation of Mexico’s sweetest heritage. Accompanied by glowing photography and illustrations, it is more than a history. It is a cookbook, a cultural experience, and the largest A to Z of pan dulces ever published.

Pan dulce, an integral part of Mexican and Mexican American food culture, brings people together in panaderías and at home as the breads are shared with generations of family for breakfast, at afternoon meriendas, during holidays, or anytime at all. Follow the smell of the sugars, spices, and freshly baked breads, and you’ll discover pan dulce’s development from indigenous origin to colonial fusion, from Aztec maize to French croissants. Explore the lives of the panaderos who create new and traditional baked goods and read about the naming customs that produced the tongue-in-cheek pedo de monja and the historical conde. Reference the entries of more than a thousand pan dulces, and peruse stories of popular sweet breads, from flaky, crunchy campechanas to brightly colored cortadillos. Take your reading into the kitchen with some twenty authentic recipes from Ellen Riojas Clark, beloved Mexican cookbook authors, and panaderos from Texas and Mexico.

Pan Dulce celebrates the traditions surrounding this vital culinary culture. In cataloging the names and histories of the different varieties, the compendium honors pan dulce’s journey to becoming an indispensable part of Mexican culture and a developing food in the United States, preserving this delicious custom in bread.

Ellen Riojas Clark is ​a professor emerita at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research examines ethnic and cultural identity and cultural studies topics. She received three National Endowment for the Humanities grants and was cultural director for Maya and Miguel, a PBS program. She is executive producer for the Latino Artist Speaks: Exploring Who I Am series, and her many publications include ​​Multicultural Literature for Latino Children: Their Words, Their Worlds; Don Moisés Espino del Castillo y sus Calaveras; Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico; and Pan Dulce. She lives in San Antonio.