Mexican Conchas are soft and yummy sweet bread roll with a shell-shaped sugar topping.
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In Spanish, “concha” means “shell” 🐚 which is where this dessert bread gets its name.
Among all the Mexican sweet breads, this is undoubtedly the most popular.
They are easily found at any and all Mexican bakeries. Enjoyed with hot chocolate or a cup of coffee morning, day, or night.
Table of Contents
Ingredients for the Dough
- Unsalted butter ONLY! Don’t use salted butter as it will kill the dry yeast, and the bread won’t rise.
- The butter has to be either room temperature or melted. Cold won’t fold when mixing.
- Instead of evaporated milk, you can substitute for regular milk.
- For a spongy bread, stick with all purpose flour, but you can use bread flour 1:1 as a substitute.
🥣 How to Make the Dough
- Add warm water to the active dry yeast. Mix slightly. Set is aside until foamy.
- Add all of the dough ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer EXCEPT FOR THE FLOUR.
- Mix on a low-medium speed.
- Then slowly add a little bit of the flour and mix on low speed.
- Stop the machine and add the remainder of the flour. Again mix on low.
🥖 Notes on Yeast
- Don’t use hot water to the yeast, or you will kill the beast. You can also use warm milk instead of water.
- Look at the expiration date on the yeast package. If it is expired, you can’t use it. Test the yeast by adding some to warm water. The yeast mixture should start to bubble after 5 minutes and good to use.
Yeast is also used when making Rosca de Reyes, Pan de Muerto, and other traditional Mexican pan dulce.
👩🏼🍳 Pro Tips
- I usually start with the paddle attachment. As the dough gets thicker, I switch to the dough hook attachment.
- Stop every so often and scrape the sides of the bowl.
- Be sure NOT to turn on the Kitchen Aid mixer or the hand mixer on high. Flour will go everywhere!
- You can use a regular hand mixer too. OR, do this by hand on a floured surface. It will take time to knead everything together.
- The dough should be elastic, soft, and should NOT stick to your hands.
- Place dough in a greased bowl. Turn it around so you can grease the bottom side too.
- Cover with plastic or a kitchen towel in a draft free place.
- Leave in a warm place. It will take roughly 2 hours for the dough to rise. It will double in size. In this case, size does matter. ⏰
Baking Notes
- This dough is needy. Wink. Wink. Be patient. It can take up to 15 minutes (sometimes 20 minutes) for the dough to come together.
- At first, it might look like the flour mixture will never come together, and you will be tempted to add more flour.
- DON’T ADD FLOUR, or your bread will dense.
- If after 20 minutes, the dough is not coming together, add 1 tablespoon flour and mix. Little by little, until it comes together.
How to Make the Sugar Topping
- Powder Sugar
- All Purpose Flour
- Butter
- Vanilla Extract
- Cocoa powder – for chocolate conchas
A good authentic Mexican conchas recipe will start with the vanilla topping.
From there you can change it to whatever you like: strawberry, chocolate, purple, etc.
Here, we are doing two types of toppings or flavoring – chocolate and vanilla.
How to Change the Color
- For yellow conchas, add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the sugar topping.
- For pink conchas, add a few drops of red food coloring.
- Add softened butter to the mixer.
- Mix for 1 minute.
- Add powdered sugar and flour to the mixer.
- Blend until smooth.
- Divide the sugar topping into two balls to make chocolate conchas.
Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
After you add the flour, the topping mixture will have a wet sand texture. This is exactly what you want. By itself, the topping tastes really, really good.
If you are only making white Mexican conchas (or as some people in Mexico call them “Conchas de Novia”), do not add cocoa powder.
🍫 For Chocolate Conchas:
- To one of the topping balls, add the cocoa powder. Mix well.
- Take the sugar topping and roll out 6 chocolate balls and 6 vanilla balls.
- Place one of the balls between two pieces of wax papers (or parchment paper)
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the topping wide enough to cover the dough balls.
If you are making the topping using food coloring, use gloves. It tends to stain your hands.
Use your judgement here. Eyeball the size you need. You can also use a tortilla press to make the topping.
See how thick this is? Do not roll this out too thin or it will crumble before you are able to place it on the dough.
- Remove the plastic wrap or kitchen towel, and place on a wooden surface.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal portions, a little smaller than the size of a tennis balls.
- Roll out the dough ball until smooth.
Make sure they are the same size, or they will not bake evenly. Place the smooth balls on a greased baking sheet.
Separate them about 3 inches apart. They will expand when they are baking in the oven.
Pat them down with the back of your hand to flatten them out slightly.
- Grease the top of the balls with vegetable shortening or melted butter. It will help the sugar topping stick to the dough.
- Take the rolled out topping and gently place it on top of the dough balls.
I am using a sharp knife to create the pattern. If you use a knife, dip it in flour after each use. That way the knife will not stick to the topping.
You can also buy a conchas cutter online to create the sugar shell pattern. Same thing, dip the cutter in flour after each use for best results.
- Cover the conchas and proof for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Then bake for 20 minutes.
Start early in the day so the dough has plenty of time to proof. You can also make the dough a day before. Simply store in your fridge, then bake the next day.
Storing Instructions
- Do NOT store Mexican sweet bread in the refrigerator. They will go stale faster.
- Best way to store pan dulce is at room temperature for 1-2 days in a plastic, sealable bag or an airtight container.
- You can freeze Mexican Conchas for longer storage, but they won’t be the same. If you are making conchas bread pudding, you can use frozen conchas.
- You can even freeze the dough. Thaw and bake later.
🍰 More Pan Dulce Recipes:
Pan Dulce, or Mexican Sweet Bread, can make strong men weep and children smile. Serve these soft and fluffy Mexican Conchas with coffee or milk for dunking.
They are a lot of work, but totally worth it. You can taste the love baked into every bite.
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Did you make this recipe? Please rate the recipe below!
Mexican Conchas
Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 2 ½ teaspoons yeast
- ½ cup warm water
- ½ cup evaporated milk
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter or margarine softened or melted
- 1 egg
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the Topping:
- ⅔ cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder if using
Instructions
For the Dough:
- In a large bowl, stir together the yeast and warm water.
- Mix and set aside for 10 minutes.
- Add the evaporated milk, ⅓ cup sugar, salt, ⅓ cup butter, egg and 2 cups of the flour.
- Mix everything on medium speed.
- Stop mixing and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Gradually add in the remaining flour and ½ teaspoon cinnamon.
- Knead with the hook attachment for 10-15 minutes.
- Do not add more flour.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured counter.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl.
- Turn the dough to coat the bottom.
- Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel.
- Let rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size. About 2 hours.
For the Topping:
- In a bowl, beat ⅔ cup powdered sugar and ½ cup butter until light and fluffy.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl, making sure to mix everything.
- Stir in the flour, cinnamon, and vanilla.
- Mix until the mixture is the consistency of a thick paste. It will look like wet sand.
- Divide into two parts, and place one part in a separate bowl.
- If making chocolate conchas, add cocoa powder to one of the bowls, and mix until fully incorporated.
- When the dough is done rising, divide into 12 pieces.
- Make sure the dough pieces are the same size, or they will not bake evenly.
- Shape the dough into balls.
- Place on a greased cookie sheet.
- Space the dough pieces out about 3 inches apart.
- Gently press them down with the back of your hand.
- Make 6 balls of the chocolate topping mixture and 6 balls of the white topping mixture.
- Place each ball between wax paper.
- Using a rolling pin, roll out the balls enough to cover the dough balls.
- Grease the top of the dough with melted butter, oil, or shortening.
- Place the rolled out topping on top of the dough balls.
- Pat down lightly.
- Use a knife to cut the grooves in the topping like a shell or criss cross.
- Cover and let rise until doubled. About 45 minutes to an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Enjoy!
I’m from California and very accustomed to conchas. The pink ones were always my favorite! But now that I’m in the south, I can never find these vibrant buns anywhere. I will definitely be trying your recipe, I bet they are even better than the ones I’d get. Also, your note about not turning the mixer on high made me chuckle. Having done this in the past and had flour fly all over the kitchen, ha ha!
Hope you try this recipe! It’s delicious
I’ve never had conchas but I’m totally intrigued. Love the idea of the chocolate ones. Definitely on my to make list! Pinning for later!
Hope you try it! This recipe it’s amazing
I love trying new bread recipes since bred is one of my favourite things to make! I have heard of conchas but never made them before. Thank you for sharing this recipe, I will definitely be trying this out!
Glad you enjoyed this
I love a good sweet bread recipe! This one looks exceptional. Drooling over your topping!
It’s so yummy! Hope you try it
I’ve been obsessed with making new types of bread lately and have never heard of conchas. Just added to my list of breads to try – sounds delish!
So glad you enjoyed this!
So cool! I’ve never heard of this sweet bread. So excited to make it, they look like little turtles haha
This bread it’s amazing! Hope you try it
I love trying out new yeast bread recipes and I’ve seen pictures of these before but haven’t given it a try yet. Can’t wait..and your step by step photos are so helpful..thank you!
Glad you enjoyed this! Hope you try it!
This is just the best recipe for conchas! They really took me back to my time living in Texas. These came out perfectly soft and fluffy — so delicious! Thanks so much for sharing your talent.
I think so too delicious. Glad you liked it!
Taste is amazing! But my conchas are too dense how would I make them fluffier? I did everything…but my yeast didn’t bloom.
It sounds like you might have added more flour than needed when making the dough. The dough doesn’t look like it will come together, and people will add flour. Have faith in the dough. It will come together. You just need to knead and knead and knead until it’s not sticky anymore, and your hands don’t stick to the dough.
The Conchas look amazing, I’ve made Conchas before but every time I make the topping and then bake them the topping looks like its melting away and doesn’t hold its shape. I will try your recipe.
Hope you try it! this recipe is one of my favorites.
Thank You Very Much!!!
Glad you liked it!
Can I make the dough in the bread machine?
Yes. Do the first steps. That is, you can knead the dough in the bread machine. Then continue with the recipe.
I messed up – I was sooo excited to get them in the oven that I didn’t second proof the first batch, but they still tasted great. Let’s see how the second batch turns out!
So glad you liked this recipe!
Never ate concha before baking them for for grandkids, who loved them. My wife grew up on them and thought, “not as airy as I remember”, but she thought it was good. My question is, I thought I could of gotten by with a little less flower, maybe half a cup, what do you think. I follow all recipes exactly as written, the first time. If I’m able to post a picture, I will.
Thanks for sharing!
Recipe is not near as hard as it looks, just got to dive in.
They might not be as “airy” for several reasons – it might be your elevation, how hot the room is, or it’s not hot enough. This will all affect the dough when it’s rising, especially since this recipe requires a double proof. The other thing you can do to make the conchas lighter is to use bread flour which will help the bread rise more. Hope this helps. Happy Baking!
How do I prevent the topping from cracking? Once they are done they always seem to crack in different directions than the way I cut them with the knife. Everything else Is perfect except for that.
There is a particular dessert I found at a Mexican bakery that I would like the recipe to make. I don’t know the name. It’s a flaky layered dessert. It looks like 1 inch strips of dough that were rolled in a circle to the size of a concha. They are very flaky, delicious and covered/heavily sprinkled with granulated sugar. Thank you for any help you can provide me with.
Is there something I can substitute the condensed milk with? Thank you for the recipe! It looks absolutely delicious!
I love conchas so much and this looks so easy! My favorite conchas in Mexico were much denser than all the light and fluffy ones here in the US, and I so badly want to recreate those slightly heavier and more filling conchas. Do you know if these come out on the denser side or how to make them a bit denser? Thank you!!
Hi! A couple of things to note. This is an authentic Mexican conchas recipe, but it is slightly different from what you might get at the Mexican panaderias. They are not as light and squishy. Mainly because I use all-purpose flour which is the way that I was taught. However, you can use bread flour which will make your conchas lighter and fluffier. All purpose flour and bread flour are interchangeable. If you are looking for denser Mexican conchas, try adding 1/2 cup more bread flour, or follow the recipe as is with all purpose flour. I find that if you add more flour, it will make your conchas denser. Hope this helps!
this is an amazing treat! that look’s tasty & thank you for sharing your recipe with us
You’re quite welcome. This is very tasty!!
Wow, that Conchas looks so delicious. This is bread is so cute. My kids will love this bread for sure.
It’s a kids favorite, for sure!!
Loved the recipe! I am gonna try it out this weekend. The pictures are so tempting!
Awww… thank you. Conchas take time to make, but they are totally worth it!