Pan de muerto a delicious tribute
Bread rich with butter and symbolism a tradition for Day of the Dead festival
Día de los Muertos, the festival that honors the dead, falls on Nov. 1 and 2 every year and is celebrated in Mexico and throughout Latin America. This year, it also marks the 35th anniversary of La Estrella Bakery, where the Franco family has been baking pan de muerto — sweet, round loaves full of symbolism — for Día de los Muertos since 1985.
“We actually opened on Oct. 31, 1985, just in time for Día de los Muertos,” says Erica Franco. Her parents, Marta and Antonio Franco, founded the bakery after immigrating to Tucson from central Mexico in the 1970s. Today, La Estrella
operates three locations.
Marta, Antonio and Jose Franco (Antonio’s brother) are on-site every day. Marta and Antonio’s children help manage the business, too: Jorge is the head baker, and Erica Franco, Sandra Franco and Isabel Montaño manage the books, special orders, wholesale deliveries and partnerships with local schools and universities.
When COVID-19 hit, the bakery — which makes dozens of types of breads, pastries and cookies in addition to flour tortillas and tamales — turned into a makeshift community center. “We closed for one day, just to sort of figure out what we were going to do,” Erica Franco says, “but when we reopened the next day, we had a line out the door. People wanted to check on us, to check on their neighbors, and they
just wanted their bread.” The lines can be especially long starting in mid-october through mid-november, when La Estrella starts selling its locally famous pan de muerto.
The bread’s base is soft
and rich, with lots of eggs, butter, sugar, cinnamon and orange zest. “Traditionally, anise is used to flavor the bread, because it’s said to have a cleansing scent, to ward off evil spirits,” Erica Franco says, “but our customers
prefer the orange and cinnamon flavors that we use.”
After the dough is mixed and kneaded, it gets a long rise. Then, it gets shaped into rounds. La Estrella