If you ask a Venezuelan, you might hear – there is no Christmas dinner without pan de jamón, the traditional Venezuelan Christmas bread made with yeast dough, and filled with bacon, ham, green olives and raisins.
Pan de jamón has more than a hundred years’ history and originates from Caracas, where initially it was made in a bakery using ham left over after preparation of other baked goods1. Over the time it spread throughout the country and new ingredients got added to the initial recipe.
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 15 grams fresh yeast (or 5 grams dry yeast)
- 25 grams sugar
- 100 – 200 grams warm milk
- 500 grams flour, plus some flour for kneading and dusting
- 15 grams butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the filling:
- 150 grams bacon in slices
- 300 grams ham in slices
- 150 grams green olives with paprika filling
- 2 tablespoons raisins
To brush pan de jamón before baking:
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
Instructions
- Crumble yeast in a small bowl.
- Add the sugar, about 50 g of warm milk and a few tablespoons of flour. Mix everything and put the bowl aside in a warm place.
- When the yeast has grown a bit, mix the flour with salt and butter.
- Add the egg and the yeast mixture.
- Mix everything and gradually add the warm milk so that you can form dough.
- Knead the dough and put it in a bowl. Cover the bowl and put it in a warm place for 1 hour.
- In the meanwhile, cut the olives in half as that way it is easier to roll them in.
- Cover a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and dust some flour on it.
- 1 hour later the dough should have doubled in size.
- Dust the kitchen countertop with some flour, remove the dough from the bowl and cut it into 2 pieces for the 2 loaves.
- Roll one piece of the dough into a rectangle.
- Put half of the bacon slices on the dough.
- Then cover the dough with the slices of ham.
- Put on top olives in a few rows and randomly put raisins on top.
- Roll the dough and close the ends of the loaves.
- Make sure to have the closing of the roll underneath it and put it on the baking tray. Cover the loaf with a towel and prepare the second loaf the same way.
- Leave both loaves to rest for 1 hour. The dough will grow a bit again.
- Set the oven to heat to 180° C or 350° F.
- Using a fork, make some holes on top of pan de jamón loaves.
- Mix the egg with the brown sugar and brush with it the loaves generously.
- Put them in the oven to bake for 20 to 25 minutes till they are nicely golden brown.
- Remove pan de jamón from the oven and let it cool in the baking tray for a bit before moving and cutting.
- Enjoy!