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Eating bread or cake to commemorate the dead is a tradition nearly as old as humanity itself. Of course, it began with something more literal — consuming the dead as a mortuary rite (endocannibalism) dates back as far back as the Upper Paleolithic. A dozen or so millennia later, ancient Egyptians made the act symbolic by eating bread instead. This is still practiced today by anyone who takes the Eucharist.

Pan de muerto is probably the best-known bread of the dead in America today, but long before Spanish colonizers introduced their Catholic soul bread to Mexico, there were funerary tamales and papalotlaxcalli made from amaranth or corn to honor the memory of the deceased. Nowadays it’s usually an eggy, enriched sweet loaf similar to any other Christian holiday bread, fragrant with orange zest and anise seeds, sprinkled with sugar or sesame seeds.

The Vikings had their own disk-shaped funeral bread for honoring their departed, which, over time, evolved into the regional delicacy known as Minnesota funeral bread. This is an open-faced sandwich of sliced cinnamon bread smeared with Cheez Whiz and decorated with sliced green olives, and is a real thing.

I did think about making a sweet bread, but at the end of the day I thought it’d be more fun to fill garlicky bread skulls with hot, saucy cheese brains, but if you didn’t impulse-buy a skull pan one night in a dopamine-starved fugue state in the pandemic’s early days, a muffin tin is great too. Makes 6 cabezones*

*a portmanteau of cabeza (Spanish for head) and calzone

Ingredients

1 pound pizza dough (either homemade or store-bought)

8 ounces Mexican-style chorizo (vegetarian is fine, just not the cured Spanish type)

¼ cup tomato sauce (preferably Mexican-style)

5 tablespoons butter, divided

8 ounces queso Oaxaca or part-skim mozzarella, shredded

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

Salt

Salsa for dipping

Instructions

1. While the pizza dough is either proofing or coming up to room temperature (if you’re using dough from the refrigerator), cook the chorizo in a pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the meat has browned and the lovely orange fat has rendered out, about 8-10 minutes. Turn off the burner, stir in the tomato sauce and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 F and brush the inside of your skull pan (or a large muffin tin) with 1 tablespoon of the butter.
3. Divide the dough into 6 pieces, and working one at a time, roll a portion of dough into a roughly 6-inch round (you want some overhang on the dough so you can fold and seal the edges). Gently press the dough into the pan, then loosely fill the cavity with shredded cheese, followed by a heaping tablespoon of the saucy chorizo and another pinch of cheese. Fold the edges of the dough over the top of the fillings and pinch them shut, then roll it over so the seam is face-down and gently smoosh it down into the mold. Repeat with the remaining dough portions.
4. Place the pan on a foil-lined baking sheet (in case of cheese eruptions) and bake until the dough is golden brown on top, about 20-25 minutes. Let the skulls cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack (again, gently! But also carefully — they might still be hot).
5. While the dead head breads are cooling, melt the butter with the minced garlic, Mexican oregano and a few pinches of salt. Brush on the garlic butter while the breads are still warm, then serve with salsa.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/30/superabundant-recipe-chorizo-cheese-skulls-pan-de-muerto/