Recipe for Cuban bread, Cuban bread Options

[Ilu]

Hi! The recipe for making pastelitos is very, very good!!!

Thank you so very much, you have made this Cuban very happy indeed...using the puff pastry worked great!!!

I have tried making Cuban bread several times, and I gotta tell ya, it comes out heavy, dense, and just plan yukie!!!

I follow the recipe in my cookbook, but I don't know what the heck I'm doing wrong!

Please help! Or maybe you might have a recipe?

Let me know.

Thank you!!!

[randyw41]

Welcome to the party Pal. I've gotten about ten recipes for Cuban bread off of the Internet, and none of them come out right. My mom told me that it's the water in Tampa Fla. that makes it so good, but I think she's wrong on that point. I even got a recipe from a guy, whose dad used to be a baker in Miami, and that one didn't turn out right either. I've since given up, and since I live in Indianapolis, and I'm the only Cuban/American living there, there really isn't a high demand for the product. Arrrgh!
Here's the recipe from that bakery dude. See if it works for you?

Cuban Bread
Published in the Miami Herald
Makes 1 loaf.

This recipe from the father of schools superintendent Roger Cuevas, retired baker Roberto Cuevas, was reduced and modified for home kitchens by Bob Menditto, culinary arts teacher at Lindsey Hopkins Technical Center. Cuevas also uses a commercial dough conditioner that keeps the bread soft longer, but home bakers can skip this.

1 envelope active-dry yeast.
3 cups water
Pinch of salt
4 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons solid shortening

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Dissolve yeast in 1 cup of water. Mix in a second cup of water, the salt, flour and shortening. Add enough of the third cup of water to make a pliable dough. Knead dough and form into a ball. Set aside in a warm place, covered with a damp towel, for about 1 hour. Punch down. Allow the dough to rise again for about 30 minutes.

Punch down again.

Roll the dough lightly into an oblong shape, about 3 inches wide and 12 inches long.

Set aside again, with crease up, until it doubles in size, 15 to 20 minutes. Brush lightly with water to produce a nice, hard crust. To create a baker's signature crease along top of the bread, place a strand of thick butcher's string down the middle before baking.

The weight of the string will press a ridge into the top of the loaf. Remove string after baking. (In Cuba, Cuevas and other bakers used a palm frond.)

Bake in a preheated 300-degree oven until golden brown, 30 to 45 minutes.

Hi!  The recipe for making pastelitos is very, very good!!!

Thank you so very much, you have made this Cuban very happy indeed...using the puff pastry worked great!!!

I have tried making Cuban bread several times, and I gotta tell ya, it comes out heavy, dense, and just plan yukie!!!

I follow the recipe in my cookbook, but I don't know what the heck I'm doing wrong!

Please help!  Or maybe you might have a recipe?

Let me know.

Thank you!!!

[Admin]

I buy the Cuban yellow eggbread from stores, to be honest, Cuban bread is one of the few things on the site that I don't really make. I'm not sure what really makes a big difference in the preparation, I'll look into it.

[foodiesleuth]

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger........

I have what is considered a fool-proof Cuban bread recipe and it has only worked one time for me...no idea of why! I even gave the recipe to a local baker to try it and his looked less like Cuban bread than mine did!!!!

So glad the pastelitos recipe worked for you!!!! I make them all the time and change the fillings according to whim or what I have on hand....guava, guava and cheese, sweet cheese filling, picadillo filling and also a mango preserves filling that turned out delicious!