My Gluten Free Conchas are beautiful sweet buns traditional in Mexico. They're pillowy soft and topped with beautifully scored streusel.
Gluten Free Conchas were originally posted on April 27, 2021 and have been updated with an entirely new method, new pictures, and a new video.
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Have you ever tried Mexican conchas? Once when I was in Texas visiting my sister, I saw conchas for the first time in a convenience store. They were prepackaged, but they looked beautiful and enticing. I didn't try them then because I felt if I was gonna have a concha ever in my life, I didn't want it to be a convenience store version.
To this day, I have never tried an authentic Mexican concha. However, when I made these and tasted them for the first time, I was in LOVE!!! Not only are they beautiful, they have such a great taste but an even better TEXTURE!!! Soft and pillow sweet bun with a crunchy streusel-like topping that are so good, I could eat them cold! The real test, though? Offering them to my Mexican neighbors to see if they pass the test for authenticity. The verdict? JUST LIKE the real deal ones from Mexico!!
What are Mexican Conchas?
Mexican conchas are a type of Mexican sweet bread (pan dulce) that are formed into round rolls. You'd think they'd be just any old roll. But when you start talking about the beautiful "shells" (conchas in Spanish) that are scored on top of each roll, then they get interesting. These "shells" are made from a sugar cookie-like dough that becomes this crunchy streusel on top of the buns. The contrast of soft roll with crunchy, sweet topping is so satisfying.
here's what you'll need to make gluten free conchas
- Gluten free sweet dough - this is my go-to sweet dough for all the things. It is what's used in my cinnamon rolls and SO MANY other recipes on the blog. It's a straightforward enriched dough recipe that's super easy to make and can be kneaded beautifully.
- Butter - butter is the base of the sweet streusel for topping conchas. Dairy-free butter will work just as well.
- Powdered sugar - the powdered sugar incorporates well with the butter for the streusel, making it similar in texture to a shortbread dough.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder - you'll need this if you're making chocolate streusel buns, along with a little bit of milk to thin out the dough slightly.
Making Conchas
Make the dough. Mix all ingredients for dough together in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium high for 5 minutes. Cover and let rise until doubled (nearly tripled) in size. Refrigerate the dough overnight for easiest kneading.
Make streusel dough. Combine butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla and mix until well combined. Divide dough into two and add cocoa and a dash of milk to one half, mixing until smooth.
Knead and shape buns. Remove dough from fridge and knead on well-floured surface until smooth. Divide into roughly 2.5-3 ounce pieces and shape each piece into a taut ball on unfloured surface. Place at least 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten rolls slightly. Brush each roll with an egg wash.
Top buns with streusel. Roll out a golf ball-sized piece of dough between two sheets of parchment or waxed paper into a large, flat round. Carefully peel it off the paper and place it onto each bun, pressing to adhere.
Score the streusel. For this job, you can use a special concha cutter, but it's not necessary. I simply use a knife or a round cookie/biscuit cutter to create the shapes.
Proof and bake the buns. Cover the baking sheet loosely with plastic wrap and let the buns rise until larger in size. They won't be doubled, but when the streusel is separating and the dough is poking through those separations, they're ready to bake. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.
more ways to flavor concha streusel
Did you know that you can not only color, but flavor your concha dough with fruit "powder"? What is fruit powder? It's powder made with freeze-dried fruits! Here's how to do it:
- Pick any fruit you can find, from strawberry to tangerine to banana to grape (yes, there are actually freeze dried grapes!).
- Using a food processor (I like using my mini food processor), grind each fruit into a fine powder. It's okay if the strawberry seeds don't grind down all the way. I leave them in mine, but you can strain them through a very fine mesh sieve if you want to remove them.
- Divide your streusel between however many bowls you want to make colors for, add about ¼ cup of the fruit powder to each bowl (depending on how many colors you choose). You may need to add a little bit of milk to get the proper dough consistency (because the powder will act like extra flour). Stir to combine well.
- If the color isn't to your liking, you can also add a drop or two of food coloring to your dough.
WHY IS THIS RECIPE IN GRAMS ONLY?
I now post all of my bread recipes in grams as it is THE MOST ACCURATE WAY TO BAKE. Volume measurements (cups) are not only inaccurate, but they vary worldwide. There is no way to provide one cup measure that works for everyone in the world. Using weight measurements fixes this problem. I found myself spending WAY TOO MUCH time troubleshooting bread baking problems with readers only to find they didn't weigh their ingredients. As soon as they started weighing their ingredients, the recipes worked perfectly.
If you need to convert a recipe to cups, you are more than welcome to do so via google, but please do not ask me to do it for you. I know change can be difficult, but I'm American and once I tried using a scale for the first time, I never looked back. Baking with a scale is EASY, accurate, and uses way less dishes! That right there should convince ya! Plus, if you are using my bread flour blend (as you should be for any of my bread recipes) you cannot make it without using a scale. So do yourself a favor and keep the scale out for making any of the breads on my blog. Ideally, I'd love to convert ALL of my recipes to grams, but...baby steps. Gluten free breads are notorious for being challenging, so if I can reduce the number of questions I get on just bread alone, it would free up more time for me to do what I love...provide you with many more gluten free recipes!
gluten free conchas FAQs
Yes, the name pan dulce literally means "sweet bread" and conchas are one type of Mexican sweet bread. Concha translates to "shell" in English and conchas are decorated to look like seashells.
Vanilla and chocolate are traditional streusel flavors for Mexican concha, represented by white and brown. However, they are often made into other colors, like pink and yellow, and sometimes the pink ones are strawberry flavored.
Gluten free conchas will keep well at room temperature for 2-3 days in an airtight container. They can be toasted or heated to refresh slightly. For longer storage, they can be frozen, well wrapped, for up to 3 months.
more gluten free sweet buns and rolls
- Gluten Free Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
- Gluten Free Resurrection Rolls
- Gluten Free Yeast Free Cinnamon Rolls
- Gluten Free Potato Brioche Buns
- Gluten Free Kolaches
- Gluten Free Beignets
These gluten free conchas are seriously soft and pillowy with the right amount of sugary crunchy streusel for the best Mexican sweet bun!
Gluten Free Conchas
Ingredients
Sweet Dough
- 180 grams milk (a dairy-free milk may be substituted)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 5 grams whole psyllium husks (or 7g psyllium husk powder)
- 12 grams instant yeast
- 85 grams butter, at room temperature
- 100 grams granulated sugar
- 245 grams Kim's gluten free bread flour blend (I would not recommend a store bought brand)
- 4 grams baking powder (1 tsp)
- 3 grams kosher salt (½ tsp)
- 1 large egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water and a pinch of salt (for the egg wash)
Streusel Topping
- 175 grams Kim's gluten free all purpose flour blend (a store bought blend may be substituted, but hasn't been tested)
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 148 grams butter, at room temperature (dairy-free butter may be substituted)
- 125 grams powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 7-10 grams whole milk (a dairy-free milk may be substituted)
- 15 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
Instructions
Make the dough
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add all the dough ingredients (except the egg wash) in the order in which they are listed in the recipe. Mix using dough hook for 5 minutes on medium to medium-high speed. Scrape the dough into the center of the bowl; cover and let rise until doubled in size (2-3 hours). Refrigerate the dough at least 6 hours, preferably overnight. (This allows the dough to become more manageable and easier to knead).
- Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size, ½ hour to 45 minutes. It may take longer, depending on your environment. A great trick is to heat your oven to the lowest possible setting (mine is 170° F). Turn it off and place your rolls into the warmed oven. It will NOT kill the yeast and will provide a perfect rising temperature for proofing. Just remember to take them out before preheating the oven.
Make the streusel
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the softened butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour mixture and beat until fully combined.
- Divide the dough into 2-3 bowls (for each color you are making). Leave one part plain for vanilla. For chocolate, add unsweetened cocoa powder and if the dough is overly stiff and dry, add the milk to loosen it up slightly. For pink, add pink food coloring.
Assemble the rolls
- Remove dough from the refrigerator and knead it on a well-floured surface until smooth. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces (roughly 2.8-3 ounces each). Roll into tight rolls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet a couple of inches apart. Press down on top of each roll with the palm of your hand to flatten into about ½-inch thick round rolls.
- Whisk together egg wash ingredients and brush each roll with the egg wash.
- Take a piece of the streusel dough about the size of a golf ball (or slightly smaller), and roll it out between two sheets of waxed or parchment paper into a circle roughly ⅛ of an inch thick (it doesn't need to be perfect). Remove top piece of paper and gently peel dough from bottom piece of paper and place it on top of one roll, pressing down to adhere.
- Cut out seashell shapes and grids or any other shape you desire (see within post or video for how to do this). Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise until nearly doubled in size, 30 minutes to an hour (or more, depending on the temperature of your proofing area).
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350° F.
- When rolls have fully risen (a telltale sign is when you see the scored streusel pulling apart and the raw dough is visible underneath), bake the rolls for 15 minutes (don't overbake or the rolls will be dry).
- Allow the rolls to cool slightly before serving. Rolls will keep well wrapped at room temperature for 2-3 days, or can be frozen, well wrapped, for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and refresh or reheat in a 300° oven until warmed through (about 15 minutes). The streusel will eventually soften on the rolls as they sit, but can be re-crisped when reheated in the oven.
Emily Croce says
I have always shied away from making the GF flour mixes recommended by sites like yours because, hey, it's extra work. HOWEVER, I finally went for it, made your flour blend, and made this recipe for my son with celiac. We live in Texas and the kids are in bilingual schools that always celebrate Dia de Muertos. Well, I AM SO IMPRESSED! The dough felt like "real" dough when I kneaded it, rose beautifully, smells delicious, and I am delighted he'll be able to join his friends in the food part of the celebration this year. I am not great at reviewing online recipes but had to for this one! THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!
Kim says
Awe, this is so WONDERFUL to hear!!! I love it when kids can be a part of something related to food because, as an adult with celiac who was diagnosed as an adult, I can only imagine how hard it must be for kids to feel like they belong. This makes my heart so happy! Thank you so much for sharing 😍😍😍
Adison Sanchez says
This recipe was good but why do I have to search and search and find and half this and this and this from all these different recipes JUST to get the recipe for the dough. There’s no reason I should have to go look at a bajillion other things and do all this math for one recipe. Baking already has enough math, just put the ingredients in the recipe. It’s not that hard.
Casey Wood says
What fun! I knew I needed to try making a batch after a recent episode of GBBO!
I've used the cinnamon roll dough with great success many times, so I was happy to see that as the base. I added a tsp of vanilla to the streusel topping, divided in half and added a scant 1/4 cup of cocoa to the other half for chocolate and vanilla options. These were super reminiscent of the ones I grew up with in Southern California. Soft, slightly sweet bun with a topping that was light and fluffy and crisp. And they crisped up again nicely in the oven to reheat. Thank you, again, for a great recipe
Kim says
It's my pleasure, Casey! So glad you liked them 😊
Saja says
Way too sweet. I knew it'd be sweet, but I usually follow recipes on the first try. So follow I did. Also I think I overproved the dough as they fell flat. I'll try again.
V M says
I saw this recipe two years ago. Thats how I found this website in fact... I've been putting making it off all this bc of all the work it involved... but man, now that I've made it.... WOW! Thebreqd is so delicious. Totally worth it.
Kim says
Thanks so much! I'm so glad you liked it 🥰
Teresa says
You're so creative and inventive, Kim. i've wondered whether these could be made GF since I saw the recipe months ago. Can't wait to try them. Thanks and its a pleasure to read your blog and see what impossible recipe you'll tackle next.
Kim says
Awe, thank you so much, Teresa! I'm just trying to create those things we are told we can't have 😍😍😍