Name: Venezuelan Cachitos (Small Bread with Ham)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 150 min
Ingredients: 2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour; 4 gr 1 tsp yeast; ½ cup whole milk (warm); 2 tbsp water; ¼ cup of sugar; 1 egg; ½ tsp salt; ¼ cup unsalted butter (melted); 150 gr smoked ham sliced; 100 gr bacon sliced; 1 egg; 1 tbsp water; ½ tbsp sugar

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Ham cachitos are one of the most popular breakfasts in Venezuela. You can find cachitos in almost any bakery.

This is a sweet and soft bread filled with smoky ham and bacon. It’s one of my favorite breakfasts of all time.

Now that I live outside Venezuela I’ve found this recipe to be the perfect recreation of my beloved morning cachitos.

Table of Contents

How to make the bread dough
Wrapping the cachitos
Other Venezuelan recipes
Venezuelan Cachitos (Small Bread with Ham)

How to make the bread dough

The bread of a good cachito is where the magic happens. It must be soft, bouncy, mildly sweet and with a slightly brown outside. It’s not a crusty bread.

This dough is quite easy to make. It is like a mix of tequeños dough and rustic bread dough.

It must be an elastic dough because it needs to wrap in a croissant shape without breaking. If you’ve ever made bread you know that elasticity comes from fat. So, yes, this dough will require some melted butter to get elasticity and resistance.

The ingredients for the bread

2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
4 gr (1 tsp) yeast
½ cup whole milk (warm)
2 tbsp water
¼ cup of sugar
1 egg
½ tsp salt
¼ cup unsalted butter (melted)

An important thing when making bread is the order in which you add the ingredients. The second most important advice is to be patient. Letting the dough grow will give you a fluffy and soft bread.

The worst enemy of a novice baker is their impatience.

The beginning of any bread recipe is to activate the yeast.

For this recipe, I use 4gr of instant yeast with ½ cup milk, 2 tbsp water, ¼ cup sugar and 2 tbsp of flour.

The milk must be warm (I set 20 seconds in the microwave). This will help the yeast grow but if it’s too hot it will kill it.

The sugar is the food for the yeast.

I stir all the ingredients and let it rest for 3- 5 minutes. You will start to notice some bubbling and the formation of thick foam. This means that the yeast is alive and ready to use.

Then, add this yeast mix into the rest of the flour and add the egg. Beat the dough using a stand mixer or your hands.

Once you get a homogeneous dough — at this point it will be a bit lumpy but don’t worry —- add the butter and the salt. Adding the butter and the salt, at last, will avoid killing the yeast.

Beat until you get a soft and homogeneous dough.

Transfer to a clean surface with a bit of flour on top. Knead for a couple of minutes until you get a soft and bouncy ball of dough. Gently, stick your finger into the surface of the dough and see if it bounces back (like in the pictures).

Grease a bowl with a bit of butter and put the ball of dough in it. Wrap it with plastic wrap and let it rest for 2 hours in a warm place (like the oven).

Wrapping the cachitos

This step can be a bit tricky, but if the dough is elastic and soft the wrapping process will be way easier.

The first thing to do is to take the ball of dough out of the bowl. Just turn the bowl upside down over a clean surface and let the ball fall without touching it. This way, the ball will fall into a perfect circular shape.

Flatten the ball into a flat circle and cut it like a pizza into 8 same-size pieces.

Now, take one of the triangles and facing the flat side towards you, stretch all the tips of the triangles. Especially the tip at the center. It must be long enough to wrap the entire cachito with it. That’s why it is so important to use enough fat in the dough. It makes it resistant and elastic.

Add 3-4 tbsp approximately of ham and bacon filling. Cover with the two lateral tips. Start rolling and wrapping the cachito to form a cylinder. Keep wrapping the cachito with the longer tip at the center. Wrapping it like a croissant.