How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

This is the only session I had so far where i used 2 different brands of flour which is Globe by Universal Robina and Sun Moon Star by Pilmico. Now, if you have attended my class, and I know some of my former students still read my blog then you know that i preach water and adore first class flours with a high protein content. Anything that is lower than my expected level is out of the book just like this popular brand I will call Brit (not it's real name). If you know your history and you bake breads, you know what this brand is. Now, you can certainly email me so I can divulge to you in secret what this horrible I mean disappointing brand of first class is. First off, it does not deserve it's price tag. Too expensive for an over P800.00 per sack flour when a P720.00 sack can use up more water. Why is that important? Well, too long to discuss but I hope your teacher can tell you why. If not, then you went to the wrong school. So here I am, using my student's flour ( the...

Just finished my one on one the other day and I enjoyed it so much because I have a chef, a professional  chef at that who owned a business once for the first time.  I got to play with my lessons once again which I always do depending on who and what the student needs. He is not new to this, he owned a pizza shop once and he is a culinary graduate. I have met quite a number of chefs before and not were as humble as Chris. You can truly see and I told myself this during class, this guy has a good heart. I prayed to Hashem that I truly truly end up helping him achieve his goal. And that is to bake good bread eats. Why bread eats? I use that term to define how bread is not just a type of food you put jellies and jams on. It's something you build your food around and within because bread to me is not a snack.  It's my dinner and my lunch.  My breakfast and my midday hunger buster. When I eat bread, in get satisfied I end up not eating rice. When I eat bread I feel a ve...

Just finished my cake classes and basic royal icing and buttercream  decorating the other day and I am so happy with the results. My students never had a background so it was kinda like walking on egg shells as I have to be careful not to step on the gas too much.  Honestly, my student said one of them had a headache after the first day of cake decorating. I think I went too fast I admit that so instead of just two days of cake decorating we stretched it for 3 days so they won't get a nose bleed. It was fun. I did not teach cake decorating last year because my brother died and I was not up to it. This time I had to dig up stored cake deco tools and stuff for my student's one on one session. Didn't realize i have very few Wilton piping paper which I prefer over Ateco. Why not Ateco? The tape does not adhere, in fact i still have a roll of this stuff and i just use it to line my cookie sheets. So i ran out of parchment paper and since I did it intend to teach,...

My 1 on 1 sessions are in full swing. One of students from the group class will be bringing his baker and sister in law for a series of more breads and cakes with decorating starting tomorrow. His sister in law and her cake baker had a 3 day cake class with me 3 weeks ago and it was fun. I learned something from them that I would never have known from someone else since their family owned the bakery for 30 years now. It's one of those stories where the family had a certain type of business and the 3rd or 2nd generation only shows interest when the parents pass away. This is one of those. " how I wish I learned from my father". Talking to her about breads (even though we were doing cakes) makes me want to shift to teaching her breads instead of cakes and so I suggested that maybe she should take some bread lessons as well since she was very much interested with the subject and.....from what I've been hearing at that point,  something is missing and something needs t...

When you're at that stage when you're doctor tells you to cut on white bread and start whole grain,  you know you are old. Yup. And so for the past few years I have been supplying my sister with all sorts of breads with this and that. Meaning I add just about anything that can put a new skin on my breads so I can call it healthy er and whole grain. Luckily for us who knows how to do it, I admit my early years have produced failures such as theb awful spinach bread that only me and my helper ate and the slimy flax bread that told me too much of the good stuff is also bad. Now this Pandesal has oatmeal, atta flour or fine whole wheat and potatoes. I used m6 KitchenAid because I want to make smaller batches. The whole baking bread is my one routine I want to do on a weekly basis so a large batch was never an option. Once again, I start with a refreshed starter and then slow rise the dough for about 12 to as much as 24 hrs depending in the crumb I want. Longer rise if i want la...

It starts with the freshest ingredients you can find. No weevil infested or forgotten flour in the pantry, but newly unloaded from the car flour. Then you make a sponge. Then you  wait. After all, as I tell my students, baking is all about patience. And patience needs time. This dough was made with a pate fermentee', 50% and then made to rest for another night in a cool 10 degree C pantry. Your refrigerator will do the job. No need to go to New York. Slow rise. That's the key.  I also did not use any additives so the bread was redolent of that slight tangy yeasty goodness. The crumb structure was fine since I did not over proof it and used a high 375 F for the first 20 mutes then brought it down to 325 for an extra 35 minutes to develop the thick crust.

For those who are just starting to bake cakes, I know what it was like to fail and feel horrible for days after. Imagine spending 100 pesos for a bar of butter, all that eggs and the dishes you have to wash after...it is absolutely a nightmare when that cake fails to rise. Based from my experience, the mist common mistake it the most basic rule in baking. Reading the recipe. Sure, we all know how to read. But in baking, reading goes beyond the fine print. Sometimes I get annoyed when "cut into small squares " gets read cut into big rectangles.  Sabing squares eh, pero rectangle ang ginawa. Or,  "boil the water and reduce to simmer then add the sifted cocoa", but no, he reduced the water and then he added the cocoa. Ha ha ha. It is confusing and baking sometimes makes a fool of a genius or makes someone really look and feel awkward for the first time in his or her life. I saw a doctor cringed at the sight of eggwhites being whipped. So now that I am teaching my...

So I got seriously obsessed with these red mongo breads lately. Believe it or not, the filling was plain boiled and pureed red mongo beans and brown sugar but Michelle, one of my November students cant help but snack on the palaman. So I showed them.how to fill a braid or plait with mongo and when it was done, I sliced it up and saved it for my nocturnal snacking. Yeah. I am old in wake up early everyday. No exception. Anyway, I don't know what got to me but I ate a quarter of the loaf  (got to save some for my ate). You see, I make it a point to share to my dear sister anything great that I tasted or created from my kitchen. If it was just so and so, I don't bother sending them to her. And so 3 days before I left for New York (she won't stay quiet mind you if she liked something ) she dropped by my kitchen for a 4 batch 20 some piece  pound cake baking, that she asked me "ano yong binigay mo na tinapay na may palaman"? I said that's Mongo and you are lucky...