January Hands on Special Class

Here are some of the photos from my January special one on one class. Tonette inherited a bakery and has been the purchasing officer for her Aunt for some time but decides to learn the trade herself. She missed my group class so she is taking the one on one session with me.

I love the enthusiasm and the interest, the hard work she put in during the class and her determination to succeed. My only advice to beginning students out there and this is what i tell my students all the time. You cannot force the baker out of you in two days, not in 4 days, or even a month. It's a lot of hard work, patience, understanding, calculating, more patience and TIMING. Not every student will learn the same way, same time, same manner. You cannot put a clock into coaxing the baker out of you.

If you will expect to perfect your pandesal just because you took a crash course in 4 days, then you will be setting yourself to more frustrations. It may have taken 1 sack of flour before i was able to write down my recipes in black and white, but i enjoyed the whole process and i did not rush it. You cannot put it on speed dial. Everything has to take its own time. I feel sad when a student gets into the whole baking and when he or she gets into trouble, i will found later that he or she has never taken the time to read her or his ebook. Not even glanced at it. tsk tsk tsk.

I tell you this. You can bake cookies or cakes out of Martha Stewart's book and start selling them. But never breads. At least not the kind of breads you can sell right away. Breads made to be eaten at home, hmmm probably, but not shelf style material.

So here they are,,, to those who are interested, i do not accept 2 day baking lessons. It has to be 4 days or count me out.

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3rd Class Flour, What's It All About

For starters i cannot make this Hard Monay if i did not bring any 3rd class flour or soft weak flour to New York. Once i ran out of 3rd class and tried Cake Flour, it turned bad, do not even think of using All Purpose, it will be soft but not chewy as this one made with yes, 3rd class indeed. So third class is hard to find here in the US if you will use that term. You have to say or look for soft wheat flour, that's it, not hard wheat flour, not cake or All purpose but something in between these two. It is easy to find in the Phil., just ask your local bakery suppliers and they know it is Tercera. Tercera is not for bread, bakers use it basically for cookies, cakes and other pastries, but we bakers know how to create bread recipes using part of this flour with the bread flour or hard wheat flour. It makes a softer version of any of your fave breads, with a cheaper price tag. Plus if i own a bakery, i get to use the third class for my cakes and cookies, lowering my food cos

Cutting Pandesal, Baston Style

So how do we really do the Baston style "singkit" cut? First start with a slightly stiff dough, if your dough does not have eggs or eggyolks, a hydration of around 55% is ideal. I have seen bakers use less water, but that will make your Pandesal too dry and dense after 1 day or so so try to keep it slightly on the soft side, but not too sticky. Why? If you use a sticky dough for the Baston style cut, the dough will spread and will have a flat look rather than a rounded shape we are all familiar with. In Tagalog, "lalapad" ang dough so medyo flat ung Pandesal. So after you mix the dough, divide it into 2 to 4 portions if you are mixing kilogram. Experienced bakers divide their dough into 500 gram portions, i do mine the same way. Flatten the dough, focusing more on the length and not on the height. The height of the dough should be around 2 to 3 inches only. Next, fold the dough while pinching the edges making sure the dough surface

Kape at Pandesal

When someone emailed me about Kape at Pandesal, i suddenly felt home sick. Just these two words. Dipping Pandesal in coffee. Who got this phenomenon or practice started? We all know the colonial Spanish era and Gregorio Zaide mentioned our fondness for idling around in the history books (Juan Tamad and siesta), but for breakfast? Who wants to jump up and down when you wake up? This is the answer. Dunking the warm, crispy Pandesal into hot, steaming coffee. How did this thing start? Who invented it? What made the Pinoys dunk their Pandesal? Maybe the Pandesal in those days are rock hard, or maybe it is one way to sweeten the bread. Baka may alamat dito. Is it because the Pandesal is salty in those days? After all, sal means salt right? The Italians love to dunk their Biscotti in coffee, but the Biscotti deserves it. Seriously, Biscottis if not dunked in coffee can give you a free tooth extraction. But the Pandesal? Okay to some, it cools down the coffee. Don't tell me they

How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

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