FRESH CONCHA CREATIONS
Rediscovering the possibilities of the Mexican sweet bread
It’s safe to say Vianney Rodriguez is crazy for conchas. The Texas food writer, blogger and cookbook author has long nursed a passion for Mexican pan dulce (sweet breads and pastries), particularly the concha, the round roll with a crumby, flavored topping scored to look like a seashell; hence, the name. They’re probably the most familiar pan dulce found in panaderias throughout the United States and Mexico.
“The sweet smell of conchas reminds me of my childhood when we spent the summers with
my grandparents in Brownsville,” Rodriguez said. “On weekends, we went to the panaderia down the road, and we got to pick out the pan dulce we wanted.”
Last year those memories fueled recipes she developed using conchas. First there was a simple concha ice cream sandwich. That led to conchaflavored ice cream. Then a concha milkshake and then concha Rice Krispies treats.
This year, the San Antonio resident developed 14 unique recipes using conchas that she put on her blog, sweetlifebake.com. Yes, she’s made conchas from scratch, a process that is somewhat laborious. “But there are so many bakeries making them, and they’re great. I didn’t want to take away from what they were doing,” said the author of “Latin Twist,” a cocktail cookbook, and the more recent “The Tex-Mex Slow Cooker.”
She purchased about 250 conchas to create recipes such as Concha Texas Sheet Cake, Concha Tres Leches Cake, Concha Coconut Margarita, Concha Bark, Concha Sopapilla Bars, Concha Trifle and even Concha Coffee Creamer. Rodriguez said she deliberately kept her recipes simple so that home cooks could use them as a springboard for their own concha explorations, which are trending.
“There are talented bakers who are showing love for the concha,” she said. “Panaderias are bringing in younger bakers. The younger crowd is taking it to the next level.”
The 2017 unicorn-dessert craze brought out a wave of brightly colored sweets, including unicorn conchas (uniconchas), which Houston’s El Bolillo Bakery was quick to seize on. Last year the bakery, which counts the traditional concha as its bestselling pan dulce, began producing manteconchas, a pastry that combines a muffin bottom with a concha top.
“Anything that’s out there that is catching people’s eye, we try to do it to make it fun for our customers,” said Blanca Pescador, manager of the El Bolillo on South Wayside. “We can come up with these crazy ideas when there’s something going on because we want to be involved.”
El Bolillo also makes pastrycream-filled conchas, custom-colored conchas and continues to traffic in the uniconcha.
But more to Rodriguez’s point, the concha appears ripe for reinvention. She said she’s seen bakeries making mini conchas and manteconchas in both regular and small sizes, perfect for children’s birthday parties and showers.
The concha burger (a hamburger sandwiched by a sliced concha) had its moment in San Antonio several years ago but continues to be “emblematic of the cross-cultural exchange” between the U.S. and Mexico, Texas Monthly taco editor José Ralat wrote last year in an ode to the concha burger in Cowboys & Indians magazine. In 2016, a concha burger won the James Beard Foundation’s annual Blended Burger Project, proving that the concha remains as relevant as craft barbecue and tacos as a Texas culinary ambassador.
Last year when Austin’s La Condesa restaurant marked its 10th anniversary, it did so with a menu that included a dessert concha filled with champurrado ice cream. The current menu includes a concha dessert with chocolate ice cream and masa milk foam.
“The concha is a prime example of something that is taken for granted then resurfaces,” said Adán Medrano, chef, cookbook author and scholar on Texas Mexican culinary traditions. “It’s always going to be reinvented. But you can never touch the classic
— it will always be there.”
In his cookbook, “Don’t Count the Tortillas: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking,” Medrano included a recipe that he says “recycles” conchas. To make piedras cookies (“rocks”), he mashes stale conchas into crumbs and mixes them with flour, sugar, shortening and raisins to create a crunchy cookie that is iced with a simple confectioner’s sugar frosting.
He was delighted to see the concha publicity in 2017, when internationally renowned chefs Enrique Olvera and Daniela Soto-Innes debuted a black sesame concha at their Cosme restaurant in New York.
“To me, they’re saying that the core of Mexican cuisine” — something as iconic as a concha — “has a permanence,” said Medrano, who lives in Houston. “It’s a totem. It’s so important at its core.”
Cesar Cano, the Houston teacher who emerged as a fan favorite as a finalist on the “MasterChef ” TV competition in 2018, said he has been testing numerous concha recipes that will eventually be used for the dessert course for his next Taque Son pop-up dinner series. “I’ve always loved conchas. They’re so wonderful right out of the oven,” he said. “They’re taken for granted because they’ve been around forever as a staple of Mexican culture.”
He said he applauds Rodriguez’s new batch of recipes for conchas, which he said lend themselves to all types of sweet and savory creations.
“She’s using them in ways I’d never think,” Cano said.
Though she said she’s had fun highlighting the iconic concha, Rodriguez said she’s also happy to see the concha in a new light.
“Conchas have taken on a whole new level of love lately,” she said. “And I’m here for it.”