Pan y Dulce

Starred review from October 1, 2024
Baker, blogger, and author Ford (New World Sourdough, 2020) turns his attention to bread baking in Latin America, with 150-plus recipes representing all 33 countries that make up the region. After chapters on necessary tools, ingredients, and techniques, recipes follow for yeasted and hybrid doughs, sourdoughs, desserts and pastries, and savory and gluten-free breads. Baking with sourdough can be intimidating, especially for new bakers, but Ford breaks down the steps into digestible pieces and includes photographs that help illustrate the process. Best of all, Ford offers many recipes, like pan de yema Peruano and pan sarnita, that don't require long resting times for the sourdough preferment (a pre-fermented combination of flour, water, and yeast), meaning they could be baked the same day they are begun. Rolls and loaves of every kind, as well as desserts like tres leches tradicional and flan de coco, round out this collection, spotlighting the beauty and diversity of Latin American baking. Ford's warmth, love, and passion radiate from the page. With his contemplations on the history of colonization and slavery that has influenced many of these recipes--and how Native peoples have adapted them--there is so much to be learned here besides how to make bread.

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November 4, 2024
Afro-Honduran baker Ford (New World Sourdough) celebrates Latin America’s “world of bread and sweetness” in this comprehensive volume showcasing 150 sweet and savory baked goods drawn from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Ford’s penchant for sourdough is featured throughout—he provides thorough instructions for converting commercial yeast options into natural sourdough leavening, as in the recipe for pan de coco, a pillowy coconut milk roll. Traditional recipes are followed by fun updates: classic concha, or sweet buns, get a chocolate cookie dough twist, and honey-dipped Honduran Semita rolls can be made either with traditional corn or using rice flour. Gluten-free recipes abound, celebrating “the way Latin America cooked before wheat” with indigenous flours including cassava, amaranth, sorghum, quinoa, and maize. Savory fare includes many variations on fugazzeta (pizza-like flatbreads) and empanadas. Novice bakers will appreciate Ford’s precise (if at times overwhelmingly detailed) step-by-step instructions for mixing and shaping methods while the more experienced will revel in the extensive variety of sweets on offer. Interspersed personal anecdotes and reflections on Latin American foodways, especially the impact of colonization, add texture. Ambitious home bakers will be thrilled.