Homemade Pandesal

Apr 20

Apr 20 Homemade Pandesal

Pandesal are lovely, soft, Filipino bread rolls enriched with milk and eggs. They’re similar to American dinner rolls, though more traditionally eaten at breakfast time. I am not Filipino, but a former colleague of mine who is, posted a beautiful shot of her homemade Pandesal on Instagram (that also got her mom’s stamp of approval), and I was inspired to make them myself. She kindly passed along the two recipes that she referred to while baking them. See below. If you aren’t familiar with these rolls, both recipes are good reads as the authors wax on about their favorite ways to eat them. They’ll definitely make you hungry for Pandesal like I was.

Teri’s Recommended Pandesal Recipes:

Foxy Folksy: https://www.foxyfolksy.com/pandesal-recipe/
The Little Epicurian: https://www.thelittleepicurean.com/2015/08/pandesal-filipino-bread-rolls.html

The recipe below is based on the one by Foxy Folksy. Their technique has you kneading the dough by hand though, and my experience with sticky, enriched doughs is that it’s far easier to knead in a stand mixer if you have one, so I’ve outlined a mixer method. If you do prefer to knead by hand, I suggest simply using the Foxy Folksy recipe. The ingredients are the same. It’s worth reading the post either way, because they do a nice job explaining how your dough might come together differently depending on the brand of flour you use. In fact, I needed to add a few extra tablespoons of flour to get a workable dough as I was mixing.

A word about the yeast:

The simplicity and speed of this recipe relies on the power of instant yeast. Simply substituting active dry won’t work here. If you prefer to use active dry yeast, I’d suggest using the recipe above by The Little Epicurian. I might try it myself the next time I make these. I had great success with her brioche recipe last year.

Here’s how I shape dough into perfect balls.

I use this same method for my English Muffins and Bagels. Start by rolling each portion of dough into a rough ball then flatten into a disk. Fold the edges of your disk in toward the center until you have a smooth ball. Pinch the seems closed. Seem side down, lightly scoot the dough ball around on the counter with cupped hand, until you have sealed the seam and have a nice, little ball. The first few seconds of my English Muffin shaping video shows this.

Pandesal (Pan de sal) Recipe:

Yield:
12 rolls

Difficulty:
Moderate (Easy if you’re familiar with bread baking)

Ingredients

400 grams all-purpose flour
50 grams granulated sugar
6 grams salt
230 ml whole milk, 80° F to 100 F°
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 TBSP unsalted butter
1 ½ tsp instant yeast
30 grams breadcrumbs

Instructions:

Melt butter and set aside to cool a bit. (If it is too hot it will kill the yeast.)

Whisk flour, instant yeast, sugar, and salt together in a medium sized bowl.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, add milk, egg, melted butter and mix briefly by hand just to combine. Put the bowl on the mixer fitted with the dough hook, add 1 cup of the flour mixture to the milk mixture and mix on low speed just until combined. Repeat adding cups of your dry ingredients until all has been added. Turn the mixer up to medium and knead until a soft, smooth dough forms. It will still be a little tacky and may not entirely clear the sides of the bowl, but you should be able to handle it. If it is VERY soft and sticky add more flour 1 TBSP at a time, kneading again until you can handle it. Avoid adding too much flour or you’ll end up with dry, dense rolls.

Transfer the dough to a greased bowl (I use canola oil) turning once so the dough is coated. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled in size. For me, this was 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350° F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put breadcrumbs in a small bowl.

Press down gently on your dough a few times to remove large air bubbles. Turn the dough out onto an unfloured work surface.

Divide into 12 equal pieces. I do this by weight. Cut, don’t tear at the dough. A bench scraper is useful for this. For me, it came out to 65 grams per piece because I had to add a few tablespoons of flour to the dough. It may be different for you if you did not.

Shape the pieces of dough into balls (see tips above), dip the tops of the balls in the breadcrumbs and roll around a little to get them to stick and place on a baking sheet with a couple of inches between to allow room for the dough to rise. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise slightly for 15-20 minutes.

Remove plastic wrap and bake for 16-18 minutes until the tops have turned golden brown. Transfer immediately to a cooling rack.

These rolls are best eaten the day they’re made but will last a few days wrapped tightly and kept at room temperature. My colleague suggests toasting day-old Pandesal to freshen them up a bit.