My Melody Conchas

Instructions

• Dough
• Heat milk in the microwave (in 10-second intervals) until lukewarm.
• Add the warm milk to the bowl of your stand mixer and mix in the yeast and half the sugar. Let sit for about 5 minutes if the mixture has bubbles you are good to go, no bubbles means dead yeast, so you will need to start over with another yeast.
• Add and whisk the remaining sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt, then add half of the flour.
• Add the melted butter and mix one more time, then place in your stand mixer adding the remaining flour.
• Run mixer (using dough hook attachment) on low speed until flour is mixed in, then speed up to medium speed for about 4-6 minutes or until dough comes together.
• Transfer the dough to a large lightly oiled bowl, then cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, place in a warm place and let rise for 1-2 hours, or until doubled in size.
• Paste
• Mix flour, powdered sugar, and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer.
  
  *the quantities that are SEEN in the video for the sugar paste are only for two conchitas, so don’t be guided by the quantities that are seen in the image, this recipe is for 6 conchas*
  
• Divide the sugar paste into 4 batches and mix it with the food coloring, you will need approx:
  – 128 grams of white (without food coloring) (the 50% of the paste)
  – 113 grams of pink (using red food coloring in small doses if you don’t have pink) (44% of the paste)
  – 8 grams of black (3% of the paste)
  – 8 grams of yellow (3% of the paste)
• When the batches are ready, wrap them in plastic.
• Assembly
• Remove the kitchen towel and plastic wrap from the bowl and push the air out of the dough. *optional* (It is very liberating, 100% recommended).
• Lightly flour the counter and place the dough in it, then divide it into 6 equal parts, (approximately 95g each).
• Cut the 6 little conchitas in a 80% vs 20% radius, you will get 6 balls of around 76g and 6 balls of 19g approx.
• The 6 bigger balls (80%-76g) will be the conchitas heads and the small ones divided in half (20% – 19g) will be the ears of each head.
• Form and roll as in the video and place the 6 conchitas on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 30 minutes.
  
  – When you finish shaping the dough, always give them the necessary space to grow (I leave approximately 1.5 inches between each conchita) place them on the wax/parchment paper on the tray where you’re going to bake them, you will not be able to move them once they rise since the dough can be flattened.
• Meanwhile, divide the white colored paste into six (leaving aside 10 grams to make the flowers of the conchitas later), roll them into 6 circles for the conchitas faces.
• Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
• Now roll the pink colored paste into the hood that covers my melody ears as in the video.
• With the 10 grams of white paste we left aside earlier, make the 4 petal flowers for the pink hood using a little bit of the yellow paste to make the center of the flowers (you’ll need 6 flowers in total).
• Now roll 6 little balls of the yellow paste to make the nose of the conchitas.
• Place all the sugar paste as in the video to make the my melody conchas.
• Bake at 350F/180C for 18 to 20 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.
• Take the conchas out of the oven and let them cool down, then add the eyes with the black paste (you can also do it before baking them, but I like to have more control of where they will be on the face so I add them after baking).
• Put the chocolate in a pastry bag, submerge in hot water to melt, cut off the tip and make the conchitas mouths.