MamaSweeta: Cachitos

This is a traditional Venezuelan pastry that consists of soft, buttery, rolled bread, filled with shredded ham. Cachitos have similar shape as croissants and are typically a Venezuelan breakfast delight! Nowadays, you can find a lot of cachito variations in the Venezuelan bakeries; a popular variation is a ham and cream cheese cachito.

The name cachito means little horn due to its shape.

This recipe is to make the traditional cachito:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tbsp dry yeast
1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk (room temperature)
3 eggs (room temperature)
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour for dusting
1 lb black forest ham (whole)

1. In a small container, mix the yeast and the water with a teaspoon of sugar and let it rest for 10 minutes. The mixture should become foamy.

2. Using a stand-up mixer with a pallet attachment, combine the butter, sugar and salt.

3. Change the attachment to a hook (for mixing dough). Add the flour all at once and start mixing at the lowest speed to avoid making a mess with the flour. Add the milk gradually until combined. Increase the speed to low (speed 2 on a Artisan KitchenAid mixer) and add 2 eggs until combined.

4. Add the yeast mixture and mix until the dough has a uniform sticky consistency and it starts cleaning up the bottom of the bowl (nothing sticks to the bottom of the bowl.) At this point, the dough is ready to rest!

5. Place the dough into a plastic bag and let it rest for 2 hours at room temperature. For even better results, place the bag in the fridge over night and work the dough the next day.

6. Cut the ham into into 1/8 inch thick strips, 1 inch long (as shown in the pictures below).

Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C

7. Using a clean, smooth surface dust a little bit of flour and work the dough just for a few seconds to get the air out. Divide it into four equal portions.

8. Take one portion and roll it out into a 12 inch disk and cut it into 8 pieces - like a pizza- using a pizza cutter. Keep the other portions of the dough in a plastic bag.

9. Place about 2 full table spoons of ham on the wider side of the triangles and then lay the two corners over the ham. Gently roll the dough over the ham and keep rolling until you reach the end of triangle. The shape of the cachito should be a little bit curved - like a horn. Place it on a baking sheet that has been covered with parchment paper or aluminum foil and ensure that the end of the triangle is down, in contact with the parchment paper. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until all the dough is finished - you will get a total of 32 cachitos.