How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

GEE, I NEVER THOUGHT THAT HAVING AN ALL BOYS BAKING SESSION WOULD BE THAT NOISY. THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAD AN ALL BOYS GROUP, THE MEN IN MY CLASS WOULD ALMOST ALWAYS ACCOMPANY THEIR WIVES, NEVER ALONE BY THEMSELVES. ANYWAY, IT WAS INDEED VERY DIFFERENT, THEIR ATTENTION SPAN ISN'T THAT AT ALL 90% GLUED TO THE LESSONS AS THEY WOULD CRACK JOKES AT EACH OTHER HERE AND THERE, TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE, AND BELIEVE ME I KINDA GOT LOST SOMETIMES, IN BETWEEN THEIR GUFFAWS AND PERSONAL INFORMATION COUNTERS THEY ALL SET UP. WHEW!!!! all in all , i think it was still very successful. i was flattered by one student who kept on telling me how he appreciated what we or i was teaching him since he had been to other schools and never really got to bake that perfectly. the problem was, he kept on and on, never stopped telling about it, his life stories etc.,etc., poor guy. but i am glad he finally saw the daylight now that he is already 58 years old. big dream, what do you know, he still h...

i am transferring some of the blogs that i have written here in my webpage, http://breadmaking.googlepages.com for more visibility. i finally decided to open my class again, didn't do much at all this past few months and i think i lost some weight thinking what to do. i have a renewed energy this time. just 3 weeks ago, i bought a new computer so i can rearrange my files, do some more webnetworking and get a life. the old laptop i am using sucks, it is so hard to use something that gives up on you just like what i do to this world. there can't be two of us!!!! i am a bit daunted by the fact that gosh, here i am again, teaching? oooh, pain and pain and more pain. is it worth it? like hell yeah, whatever, although i can't take advil the way i do before, my liver took a toll doing just that, i will try to limit the load and let the students do most of them. geeesh, like that happens. anyway, i will be going to megamall and have my class advertised hopefully start the class 3...

some baking students regard water in breadmaking as the most unimportant ingredient of all. just because you don't pay for it that much the way you shell out for a tub of butter or a couple of eggs shouldn't diminish the importance of water, which in my view is how most students in breadmaking do. when i was just starting to learn how to make bread, this was how i got the beating. by underestimating the role of water. in cakes and cookies, water or liquid should be very, very exact, no more no less. in breadmaking, the water content is variable. meaning, it could go as high as 65% today, and only 55% the next day. this is why, a breamaking student needs the aid of science to fully understand why and how come? when i try to explain these things to my students, i get many blank faces, whooo, like you have to repeat it over and over, and hope that the next time you see each other he or she has some idea of what you are talking about. i mean, i understand why it is hard, the many v...

when sombody asks me what the best method in breadmaking is, with hardly a wink, i say of course it's the sponge and dough method. this method which for thousand of years has been in use is absolutely magnificent!!! the flavor of the bread is exceptional, it has this yeasty and mouthwatering aroma that you don't need to slather your bread with anything at all to eat it off hand. i devour the bread while it is still hot. aside from the fact that it really smells wonderful while it is still in the oven, the idea that you painstakingly laboured to get this lively lump of dough for hours, excites your senses. whenver i make some for my family, sometimes i keep an extra slice for myself, hey, what if suddenly crave for it and its gone, huh. yeah, i admit, sometimes you get selfish when all this thing cost is roughly around 30 pesos, but the attention it gets is like nursing a weaning toddler so i think there is a reasonable explanation to that. whenever i make a sponge based bread,...

i first tasted my first burrito at Tia Maria's way back in college at annapolis, and i remember it was a chicken burrito. i tried to imitate the whole thing but it was a disaster from the beans to the rice i used and well, the salsa was the ultimate challenge. lately i was home alone and i looked at our grocery shelves and saw the taco shells and taco mix with the bottled salsa beside it. hmmm. i gave it a try and i loved the taste of the salsa, except that our helper at home said that it was the exact same smell of the saudi arabian foods that she had unfortunately smelled when she worked there for two months. i experimented with the flavor and used whatever spices i had on hand and so now, it is no longer a pandesal craze i am embarking on, but all kinds of tacos, burritos, enchiladas and my own version of thincrusted pizza mexican style. using the same mexican flavored salsa i added chunks of tomatoes, onions, peppers and slivers of garlic to make it healthier. then i also use ...

i am posting everything there is to know regarding the 3 day bakery course here so those who do not have email addresses can read the details here. one important question that i get is whether 3 days is all there is to take for someone who wants to open up a bakery business. certainly not, this course is offered to those who hav e no background in baking breads, but want to open up a mini bakery of their own, sparing themselves a full month's salary for tuition in one of the prestigious schools in the metro area. i have had students who took only two days and managed to sell pandesal and plain buns in their garages, but i have tailored this course to even up the odds, to at least 3 days. the advance course which is optional takes on the Sponge and Dough Method of breadmaking which is hardly used in the philippines. 3-day course NO TIME DOUGH METHOD the no time dough method is a process of making bread in under 4 hours. more of this method, advantages and disadvantages will be discu...

when you hear the words baked goods, it is as if you get that annoying aversion to it and try to get it off your mind. baked goods equal fats, and fats mean those extra pounds on your waistline and thighs. addicting just like texting to some, having fondness for baked goodies just seem to put one in trouble, maybe not a day after you eat them, but believe me, when you breads and cookies, who does the counting? nobody. and so, one bite after another, time flies and you just wake up one day with a whopping flab on your tummy, courtesy of your favorite sweet rolls. my weakness is pandesal. i remember when i was recuperating from a major surgery, i had to go home and sit by my mixer while instructing my helper to do all the mixing for me. i was craving for my homemade pandesal and the bought ones just won't do the job. when you start baking your own breads, your taste buds sor t of readjust and reject what it doesn't know. i just couldn't eat them anymore unless i slather it w...

whenever i get calls regarding breadmaking, i feel like recording everything i say by the time i hang up the phone. seriously, because almost everyone i get to talk to has the same woes, the same ambition and goal, the same dilemma. it is as if i talk to the same person only that the name changes everytime the phone rings. i remember, well, i used to be at the end of the phone a long time ago and i didn't get the answers i wanted, neither did i ever get to call someone who knows baking that much. now that i offer teaching breads at home, i get to listen to so many stories of mostly women who want to bake good breads as a business base. this page is not enough to enumerate their sob stories so i will try to recall the most common ones. the number one common denominator is the problems they encounter with the bakers. one student of mine who owns two bakeries came to me to study cakes. when i asked her why she close her two bakeries she said she went bankcrupt, had to sell the delive...

yesterday, i had a call from a friend of a friend asking me about baking cookies and how to produce them in large scale. i talked to this person for almost two hours, (without my knowledge) explaining to her the mechanics of what goes on in cookie production, from the choice of ingredients to the methods used, and most importantly how to standardize their prized recipes. she wanted to come over so that i could teach her exactly the steps to follow from weighing her recipes to mixing, molding and baking. the problem? i simply could not part with my recipe. over the years, the recipe i used evolved and it took me quite a while testing and retesting different flours to get the right consistency i wanted. so we had a problem there, she didn't want me to see her recipe, i didn't want her to see mine either. i don't know about the others, but maybe because we use a different flour from the ones being used in most baking books, i seldom get a perfect cookie when i try them out. ...

I often laugh and enjoy reminiscing my baking mishaps when i was just starting at age 18. I didn't know anything about baking temperatures, i certainly have never seen an oven thermometer and i have no idea what bain marie means. Looking back, i came a long way from being so ignorant inthe kitchen to being someone who teaches other people how to make bread, of all baked goods. I remember this incident when i tried making cheese muffins from the box. I read the instructions and baked the muffins and was surprised to find every piece perfect and delicious. It was that good that my brother asked me to do another batch for her girlfriend. Proud that somebody asked me to bake them something, i proceeded to do my thing but the muffins turned bad, rock hard. This baking inconsistencies will plague my dream to finally be able to bake goodies that are good batch after batch. I realized that it was an occurring dilemma for every novice bakers, that due to their lack of knowledge in baking sc...