Pandesal

Pandesal

Classic Filipino Breakfast/Snack Bread

The Story:  

I’ve often said that Filipinos are like Hobbits in the best of ways.  They tend to be enthusiastically hospitable, instinctively social, and understand the necessity of snacks on a journey.  If that journey is down the road to get more snacks, that is not the point.  We have our own version of second breakfast that we call Merienda (we also refer to “teatime” as Merienda because Spanish not British invasion).  Ever since I was tiny, the fragrance of these simple was enough to appease the need to wake up early enough to get them before they sold out.  We joke that air is cheaper than flour, but good pandesal should be like a fluffy pillow of happiness when you break it open! Also.  It IS cheaper.  

I've been digging around in cookbooks and the internet to find a good recipe for years. A lot of them tend to be pretty complicated. The recipe below is the result of my usual Macgyvering and tinkering with a couple of good recipes I've worked through recently. Let me know how it turns out for you!

Ingredients
Makes roughly 2 dozenish

• 4 C. Flour (All-Purpose is fine, Bread Flour will work as well)
• ½ C. Sugar
• 1Egg
• 1t. Salt
• 2 ¼ t.  OR 1 packet yeast.
• ½ C. Water
• 1 C. Milk (your choice on fat content)
• ¼ C. Butter
• Oil or Cooking Spray to grease bowls and pans
• (Roughly) 1 -½ C. bread crumbs

Process

1. Mix all your dry ingredients (including yeast!) in a large bowl.  Microwave the sugar, butter, and milk together.  Then add the egg and beat well to combine.  At this point it’s good to preheat the oven to 300 F. (yes only 300!), unless it’s a hot and muggy day like...every day in Manila.  Or almost every summer day in Indiana.
2. Make a “well” in your dry ingredients and add the liquids.  Gently mix until well combined into a ridiculously sticky dough.  You can gently knead the dough on a floured surface maybe 5-10 time to get it to come together but treat it gently.
3. Put your dough in a well-oiled bowl (one larger than you probably think you need) and cover with plastic wrap.  Let sit in a muggy location until the dough doubles.  This may take ½ hour to an hourish depending on your location and weather that day.  I’ve found that for yeast breads, using plastic wrap instead of a tea towel seems to speed up the rising process as it traps gases under the plastic.  This is my pseudo-Alton Brown -Good Eats explanation that might not actually be accurate.
   
4. Prep your pans with grease and shake out your breadcrumbs into a bowl or platter.  Gently turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, it should be full of lovely little bubbles and springy.  
   
   With a dough scraper or knife divide the dough in half.   Pat the sections into rough rectangle shapes and then roll them up into a log.
   
    Using the heel of your hand, push the two seams together down on the board to seal the log and then place seamside down.  
5. Now this is where the particular pandesal-ness of the bread comes together.  Cut each log in half, then quarters, then in 8 pieces.
   
   
   
    They should be like oblong little loaves, not round balls.
   
    Dip each loaf into the bread crumbs and toss gently to coat the two cut sides.
   
    Lay on the greased pan about ½ inch-1 inch apart and let rise double again.  
   
6. Bake the pandesal on 300, yes, the low, low temp of 300F. Again! For 20-25 minutes.  They are perfectly lovely at 20 minutes, but at 25 they develop that perfectly nutty-brown crunch on top, pillow of happy softness inside.
   
7. Eat your pandesal for breakfast or merienda with fresh butter or coconut or mango jam.   Also very much awesome with a soft egg and banana ketchup or “leftover” with a crispy longganisa sausage.  That is, if you manage to have leftovers.  
   

Tips

If you’re a night owl like me, you could mix up the dry and wet ingredient separately and store them in the fridge/on the counter and then mix up the bread first thing.  I’ve also heard of people letting it rise all night.  Alternately, you could mix it up early and then go back to bed.  Not that I’m saying I ever do such things…