Did I tell you that the only thing that I'm afraid to bake/cook is bread? The fact that I would need to knead (need... knead... hmmm homophones) the dough for a certain amount of time, wait for the yeast to take effect (meaning wait for the dough to rise) is just too taxing for me. But I finally found the courage and this simple recipe to bake pandesal.
So what is pandesal? Pandesal is the most common Filipino breakfast food. It's eaten with a variety of things. Butter. jam, liver spread, name it you can definitely eat it with pandesal. But my favorite way of eating it is dunking it in hot native coffee.
Here's the catch. I did not follow the exact recipe below. I tried to do half of the recipe, plus I did not allow it to fully rise after cutting it into small pieces. The result... the taste was fine as per my aunt, grandmother & cousin. The only problem is, isn't too fluffy. It was to "siksik" (full / thick /compressed or whatever you call it). But hey I had fun making it, so here's the recipe.
What you'll need:
4 cups (500g) all purpose flour
3 tspn instant dried yeast
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tspn salt
5 tbspn softened butter
1 tbspn oil
1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup fresh milk
Procedure:
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt & yeast
2. Lightly mix them. ( If you have a stand mixer, use the hook attachment)
3. Add egg, butter & oil.
4. Mix at low speed and allow them to mix well with the dry ingredients.
5. Combine evaporated milk, fresh milk and water and heat in the microwave for 45 seconds
6. Add milk mixture to dough.
7. Once dough is wet from the milk mixture increase speed of mixer.
8. Allow mixer to knead the dough for at least 15 minutes.
9. Once done, place dough on bowl sprayed with oil and cover with cling wrap. (try to tuck the edges of the dough for a smooth surface).
10. Let dough rest for at least 1 hour or until it doubles in size.
Ok, at this point , after my dough doubled in size, I had to knead it by hand since it was quite sticky. maybe I placed too much milk. I kneaded the dough by hand, occasionally adding flour to prevent it from totally sticking in my hand.
11. Cut the dough in desired size and cover the top with bread crumbs.
12. Let the dough rest again for at least another hour. ( again another boo-boo on my part, I just let my dough rest for 15 minutes... I was too excited to bake it.)
13. Pre heat over to 200C and bake pandesal for at least 10 - 15 minutes.
I over baked my padesal since I like it a little crunchy on the outside.
So there you have it. Fresh hot, homemade pandesal.
I think I'll try to do another batch next time. But I'll make sure this time I'll be a little more patient.
Another thing that made me want to bake pandesal is this.....
I finally took it out of it's hiding place and used it. So I guess this is going to be my new bestfriend... now, what should I name you?
