A Google search for “pan dulce” yields some 30 results for the Dallas area, thanks to the offerings from different panaderías and Latino grocery stores.
But as the Mexican community in North Texas has grown, the variety of traditional bread goes well beyond the popular conchas.
“We are seeing a demand-driven surge in the offering of authentic Mexican products,” said Federico Cervantes, an immigrant from Jalisco who bakes bread at his Dallas home to sell online.
Even though consumers can find conchas and bolillos in almost any bakery and grocery store, an offering of traditional Mexican bread such as birotes, teleras, semitas and cocoles has emerged in recent years.
Cervantes said most customers are Hispanic, so panaderos began baking a wider variety of bread.
‘Made-in-Dallas’ birotes
These bread varieties follow México’s regional culinary traditions.
Soaking a birote in sauce for a torta ahogada, making a pork leg “lonche” (sandwich) in a telera, or dunking a bolillo in hot chocolate are classic culinary experiences of Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital.
Cervantes began baking birotes, teleras and bolillos at his Wolf Creek neighborhood home as a weekend hobby. But spurred by acquaintances and friends, he created La Birotería in 2020. He now sells 400 to 600 pieces of bread every weekend, priced at $1.25 each.
According to Cervantes, baguettes or sourdough bread available at the bakery section of most grocery stores fall short of replicating the taste and texture of traditional Mexican bread.
“Each bread has a distinct trait — either in its crumb or crust, its texture or firmness, besides taste,” Cervantes, who moved to Dallas in 2002, said.
Cervantes uses Facebook and engages with Hispanic community groups on the social media site to advertise his products.
He said he has customers from all over North Texas, including restaurants.
“It brings them up childhood memories, memories from the past. That’s a common ground experience among first-time buyers,” he said.
Flavors from Michoacán in West Dallas
Amid the flurry of apartment complex construction on Singleton Boulevard, La Estrella y Familia Bakery combines a panadería and a taquería in a single place.
As Francisco Farías mixed up the dough to make conchas, he recalled the business’ inception 70 years ago, when it was located in downtown Dallas.
“The shop was created by my wife’s grandpa, who was from Michoacán. The recipe is still the same: Michoacán-style bread. That’s been the process ever since,” he said.
Farías is originally from Guanajuato, where he worked as a business manager. When he took over the business 10 years ago, he learned the bread-making craft.
La Estrella has a plentiful supply of conchas because of high demand. But it also sells campechanas, cookies, and sweet potato empanadas based on Michoacán recipes, which include cinnamon brought from Mexico to achieve the intended flavor.
“I even used to send bread to Miami — up to $300 for a bread case. I have family in Chicago and then suddenly I get a call and they say: ‘Send me some,’ so I ship them some bread,” Farías said.
Mexican and Central American traditional bread in Oak Cliff
As a teen in Chihuahua, Cristina Enríquez helped her dad in the family panadería while studying to be a hairstylist.
But when she moved to Dallas in 1996, she tried several jobs before ending up making bread.
“I think each panadería, each bakery owner, has something out of the place we come from. There is something, some little bit, different in each bread,” she said.
Enríquez has owned Panadería La Hacienda on Jefferson Boulevard since 2014. Most of the bread costs $1 apiece, except for more elaborate styles.
Here she has experimented with the ingredients available in Dallas until coming up with recipes resembling Mexican traditional bread as much as possible.
Over the years she learned to bake regional recipes such as cemitas poblanas, made out of wheat flour and used to make any kind of torta. But she also makes Guatemalan sweet bread, which differs in shape from the Mexican variety.
“It’s a kind of dough cookie. It’s neither soft nor hard. But Guatemalans themselves recognize them,” she said.
At La Hacienda, she has baked different styles of bread such as marranitos (piggies), from Chihuahua, which closely resemble gingerbread; cocoles, from Central Mexico, made of wheat flour and piloncillo (unrefined, whole cane sugar); and semitas, also made of wheat flour, but distinguished from cemitas for their puff pastry make.
“There’s a semita people from Guanajuato readily identify,” Enríquez said.
She said her ability to learn and experiment with traditional recipes her customers ask for has been key to keep her business going.
“I think we’ve made it... because it’s already been eight years.”
