COMMISSIONS: BREAD OF THE DEAD

In ovens across Oaxaca, bakers are raising the dead. 

The recipe is simple: Mix eggs, flour, yeast, sugar, a dash of anise and let sit. Sculpt the velvety dough into a round body, cut slits for arms and legs, and add the finishing touch: the carita, or little face. Put it in the oven, and watch it rise into a golden pan de muerto—bread of the dead. 

During Día de los Muertos, gifts of sweets, mescal, and pan de muerto are laid out on ofrendas, or altars, to welcome the dead home—but Oaxaca is the only state where the bread stares back.