Pan de Mallorca : Easy Mallorca Bread Recipe (Puerto Rican Sweet Bread)

Pan de Mallorca/Mallorca bread is a super soft, fluffy Puerto Rican sweet bread.It is made with an enriched dough containing milk, egg, butter, flour ,salt, sugar and yeast.

They have a beautiful shape,a flaky sweet crumb and is dusted with powdered sugar on top.

These Puerto Rican sweet bread is commonly served during breakfast but we can have this sweet buns any time of the day.

PAN DE MALLORCA/MALLORCA BREAD INGREDIENTS

For the bread dough

1. Flour :325 g (2 1/2 cups)
2. Slightly warm milk (not hot) :150 ml (1/2 cup +2 tbsp)
3. 1 Egg
4. Soft Butter/Melted butter :57 g (1/2 stick)
5. Yeast (instant/active dried yeast):1 tsp
6. Sugar :50g or 1/4 cup or 4 tbsp
7. Salt :3 g or 1/2 tsp

For topping

1. Soft/melted butter:28 g or 2 tbsp
2. Powdered Sugar :32 g or 1/4 cup or according to your preference

HOW TO MAKE PAN DE MALLORCA OR PUERTO RICAN SWEET BREAD

We can make Pan de Mallorca in 5 simple steps.

1.Prepare the dough

2.Proof the dough(1 hour)

3.Divide and shape the mallorca bread

4.Final Rising(45-50 minutes)

5.Bake the mallorca bread rolls

1.PREPARE THE MALLORCA BREAD DOUGH

Into a bowl, add all our ingredients together and mix them to form a shaggy mass of dough.

Add the milk,sugar,salt,egg and yeast.

Whisk and mix them all together.

Add softened butter/melted butter and flour and mix them together.

Once it forms into a homogenous dough, cover the bowl with a plastic film.

2.PROOF THE DOUGH

Let the dough sit and rise in a warm environment for 1 hour.

3.DIVIDE AND SHAPE THE MALLORCA BREAD

After one hour, degas the dough and form it into a round ball.

Let this dough ball rest for 5-6 minutes before rolling and shaping.

This resting time will prevent it’s tendency to rebound back while we rolls and shape it.

So for the next step of shaping the rolls, first we need to roll out the dough into thin sheet (around 3/4 cm or 1/ 4th inch thickness).

Pat, stretch and roll out the dough to form 24cm x 44 cm or 9.5 X 17-inch (approximately) rectangle with short edge nearest you.

Divide the Pan de Mallorca Dough

Using a pizza wheel, or a very sharp knife, cut the rectangle into 1 1/4″ (3cm) wide strips.

We can just eye ball it or can use a scale to it precisely.

I cut through the middle of the sheet and then through the middle of each half.Now we have four strips.Divide each strip into two and thus we will have 8 strips.

You can discard those ragged edges, on the left and right sides, to make the Mallorca buns to look more pretty and uniform.

Then spread very soft butter all over the surface.

Why do you need to smear butter on the surface of Mallorca bread dough before shaping

Buttering the surface will prevent the dough from sticking and this will help to keep that snail-shape of the Mallorca bun.

How to shape Mallorca bread/ Puerto Rican sweet bread

Now to shape the Mallorcas, start at one end of a long strip and roll it up into spiral buns just as we roll as while making cinnamon rolls. 

While making a cinnamon roll, we roll the whole dough sheet and then slice them into small parts.But here while making mallorca bread or soft Puerto Rican sweet Rolls we roll them separate.

In this way, we can keep that signature snail-shape of the buns as sharp as possible. Slicing might cause the layers to get flatten and the layers might stick together.

Place the shaped mallorca sweet bread on to a parchment lined baking sheet.

Keep some space between them so that they have enough space to rise.

4.FINAL RISING

Cover the baking tray and let the shaped mallorcas sit and rise in a warm environment for 45-50 minutes.

Why Mallorca sweet bread need slightly longer rising time than regular breads

As this mallorca sweet rolls dough is made with butter and sugar, the fermenting process will get slow down a bit.So we will need to wait a little longer for the mallorcas to rise and puff up really well.

5.BAKE THE MALLORCA BREAD/PUERTO RICAN SEET ROLLS

After 45 minutes of rising, our mallorca bread rolls have risen well.

Bake the risen mallorcas.

Place the baking tray onto a 350 F or 180 C preheated oven for 20-24 minutes.

Take care not to over bake these sweet mallorca rolls.

We need them to be lightly golden brown on top.

The texture of these Puerto Rican sweet rolls are so soft and inside is super delicious with a custardy flavor.

You will also feel the lightness of their bread and can also see the flaky layers through those swirls.

If we over bake this sweet rolls the outside will turn darker as we have sugar and egg while making the dough and the texture will not be softer as how it needs to be.

How to top the mallorca bread after baking

After baking, you will get lightly golden beautiful swirl buns.They smell amazing.

Smear the top of buns with some butter.

Wait for a minute and then dust the surface with powdered sugar.

How to serve mallorcas

Puerto Rican Mallorca bread are best to serve with coffee or tea as a breakfast item or can enjoy as an evening snack.

You can slice it open and spread it with cheese and jam .

These soft Mallorca sweet buns are best to have while they are freshly baked.Or if you have any left overs ,you can slice them horizontally, smear some butter, then toast and fill it with some ham and cheese and can enjoy it as a delicious sandwich.

HOW TO STORE LEFTOVER PAN DE MALLORCA/PUERTO RICAN SWEET BREAD?

We can store leftover Mallorca sweet rolls in an airtight container at room temperature for 4-5 days.

As these sweet soft rolls are smeared with butter and then dusted with powdered sugar, like German Fruit Bread, Stollen; I noticed that they stay longer than many other breads.

In extremely warm, humid temperatures, the Mallorca rolls should be frozen for longer-term storage.

For freezing: Place the buns in a heavy-duty freezer bag or wrap the buns tightly with aluminum foil or plastic freezer wrap and freeze.

Properly stored, they will maintain best quality for about 3 months.

HOW TO REHEAT MALLORCA BREAD

How to reheat pan de Mallorca using convection oven

Thaw the Mallorca Bread and then brush/spray some water on the bread rolls and place them into a 350 F preheated oven for 5 minutes.

The Puerto Rican sweet rolls will be soft and fresh and they smells too good.

How to reheat pan de Mallorca in microwave

Heat them for 30 seconds in the microwave. This gives them a freshly baked taste. 

HOW CAN I SUBSTITUTE EGG IN THIS MALLORCA BREAD RECIPE?

Role of egg in bread making:

Eggs added to dough help with rising. A bread dough rich with egg will rise very high, because eggs are a leavening agent (think genoise or angel food cake). As well, the fats from the yolk help to tenderize the crumb and lighten the texture a bit. Eggs also contain the emulsifier lecithin. Lecithin can add to the overall consistency of the loaf.

So it is difficult to substitute something else for egg to get the same result.

At the same time, I can say that ,as we have used only one egg in this Mallorca sweet rolls recipe, we can easily replace the egg to make Mallorca bread without much difference in texture and taste of the rolls.

As one egg is approximately 45 ml,just replace the same volume with milk or water.So you can add 3 tablespoon of water or milk in place of one egg.

Tips for making the best Mallorca Bread/Pan be Mallorca

• This Mallorca bread dough is a soft and moist dough.That is how our sweet rolls have such a light and flaky texture.

So we need to dust the working surface and the dough ball before shaping(this is the trick to handle any dough that is comparitively softer).

• Take care not to over bake these sweet rolls.

We need them to be lightly golden brown on top.

If we over bake this sweet rolls the outside will turn darker as we have sugar and egg while making the dough and the texture will not be softer as how it needs to be.

• If you want the Mallorca bread to be sweeter, dust them with more powdered sugar.

Adding more sugar to the dough will slow down the rising time.

Watch VIDEO to see How easy it is to make Pan de Mallorca or Mallorca Bread