So my nephew and i were baking Pandesal the other week and it was soooo hot in the kitchen despite the left and right electric fans covering all corners. I thought maybe we can just bake half today and let's freeze the dough, we'll think of something to do with it next time, whatever.
It was so, nakakatamad gumalaw when it is so hot. There was no air even if we were surrounded by large trees, i have never experienced over 99 degrees of hot air in the Philippines, nah uh. So, we were supposed to mix two kinds of doughs, one for the Pandesal and one for the Calzone he wants to make.
Forget about the Calzone dough, which is basically just like a Pizza dough. Lean, sponge and dough based but with very little or no fat and sugar at all. We did just one kilogram of dough, because i just want to stop moving and just sit and relax in front of the electric fan.
We baked the Pandesal, and two days after took out the dough from the freezer and looked at it. What if i just use this dough to make the Calzone? It will be like a soft dough, not crusty type of Calzone. Why not? It will be more interesting because the bread when baked will be soft unlike the lean dough based where the dough when baked will only be soft while warm and toughen and become dry once it cools down.
I took a video on how to assemble and fill these so hopefully i will be able to edit them for youtube asap. The portions are about 180 grams each, filled with three kinds of cheeses. Cottage, Cheddar and Mozarella with hotdog (kids) and salami cotto. I squirted some Sriracha inside for some heat and then baked them at 350 f. Now i think i should have lowered the heat to just 325 F because this is a Pandesal dough and there is sugar in the dough which will hasten browning a whole lost faster than the Pizza lean type dough that i normally use for this savory product.
Slice some fresh tomatoes, basil and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, this bread is a complete meal for light eaters like me.
I was not sure if my nephew John will like it, but when i went down at 11 pm that night, all the Calzones were gone ( i ate only half of one piece).
Now, folks if you are a baker and you want to find out if what you made is a hit, peek into the kitchen 6 hours after and if there is nothing left then yes, it was a hit. When my nephew asked if there was any dough left in the freezer for more Calzones, then you can bring out the pen and start writing the recipe. This one is for the books.
This is an email from Jorge Garcia, he just downloaded a copy of the ebook last week and he already made his first pandesal. To you Jorge, wait till you try the other breads, i recommend the monay which is my all time personal favorite indulgence, meaning, when i want to pig out and stuff breads in my mouth with just plain coffee while i watch tv. No palaman just plain monay. After reading the ebook for 3 times, you will be able to learn more of the techniques and procedures. I am happy for you. Hi Sher, OMG, almost perfect on the first try ! Thank you! I read your ebooks (twice) over the long weekend and tried to absorb as much as I can. Although I encountered some of the concepts in my research your ebooks were amazingly informative. I read about the idea of poolish and biga before but was not paying attention to them because all the recipes I found for pandesal did not use them. When you advised that I make a sponge overnight and menti...



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