Mulmul Dabo & Buhe: The Bread That Belongs to Children

In late August, as the rainy season begins to break, groups of boys go door to door across Ethiopia cracking whips, singing "Hoya Hoye," and waiting — because tradition says the household must answer with bread. Mulmul dabo (ሙልሙል ዳቦ) is that answer: a special bread made for the celebration of Buhe, often given to children after they perform.

What Buhe celebrates

Buhe marks the Feast of the Transfiguration in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar. The whip-cracks echo thunder, the evening bonfires echo light on the mountain, and the small round loaves — mulmul — are the sweet center of it all: slightly enriched, wonderfully portable, sized for a child's two hands.

The small-loaf family

Mulmul belongs to a family of little breads made for giving: tebegna (also called sheleto), the small round loaf it closely resembles; and engotcha, the wheat bread dipped in honey and treasured in Beta Israel tradition. Across all of them runs the same idea — bread scaled to generosity, made to be handed to someone rather than kept.

A tradition worth borrowing

You don't need the holiday to bake like this. Make a lightly sweet dough, shape it into palm-sized rounds, and bake until golden — then actually give them away. The recipe's final step is the whole culture in miniature.

Add a pinch of korerima or a scatter of tikur azmud to the dough — and read more bread traditions in our defo dabo guide.