How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

Got this article fro Sephardim.com, and i am curious about what this pan de semita is. I tried pan dulce and loved it enough to include my version in my ebook. Looks like a tortilla, unleavened form of bread or something. Below is my version of the pan dulce, half vanilla streusel and half chocolate. The vanilla flavor though is more popular, so i make buns with no chocolate in it. Sephardic Jewish foods in old Texas. Why do Mexican Americans in Texas and in the Mexican province of nearby Monterrey eat “Semitic bread” on Passover/Lent? According to scholar Richard G. Santos, Tex-Mex pastries such as pan dulce, pan de semita, trenzas, cuernos, pan de hero, and pan de los protestantes (Protestant’s bread) are similar to familiar Jewish pastries eaten by Sephardic Jews today in many other parts of the world. Pan de semita was eaten in pre-inquisition Spain by a Jew or an Arab Moor. Today, it’s popular in Texas and in that part of Mexico bordering Texas. It translates into E...

This is the 60 gram Pandesal, with out any filling (same batch as the adobo Pandesal). 1.8 % yeast level. Proofing temperature is 78 F. Proofing time is 4 hours. If i want a slightly tighter grain, i will bake this batch after only 3 hours of proof time. This hearty artisan rolls proofed for 8 hours, 1 % yeast, 85 F proofing temperature. This Pandesal has a much tighter grain, proofed for 1 1/2 hours only, 1.8 % yeast level, proofing temperature is at a warm 88 F. This version is what makes the round in most Filipino households these days.

Another Filipino staple, Adobo just like Pandesal has many versions depending on the region the cook comes from. I remember we had this helper, Manang whatever who adds 4 pieces of fresh calamansi juice in the adobo after cooking. The only problem is, she keeps half of the adobo for her and her niece so i barely get to eat it sometimes. The flavor of the cooked vinegar coupled with the sourness of the calamansi cuts the fat from the chicken skin. Another version is with tanglad or lemon grass, coconut milk and chilli (siling labuyo), but my family's favorite is the slightly sweet version, with the bay leaf and crushed black pepper. Leftover adobo is good for fried rice and for filling your pandesal or soft bun dough. The vinegar acts as a preservative so you do not need to refrigerate the filled adobo buns, actually you may add a bit of five spice powder to this, thicken it with a teaspoon of cornstarch and that can be your asado filling for siopao or dumplings. ADOBO FILLING...

I was watching Andrew Zimmern's episode on Italy, i don't remember the city anymore, the names are confusing to me but knowing Andrew, it must have been a foodie's paradise. His guide brought him to this gelato shop where he got to taste their best gelato served in a bun, and he mentioned the country Philippines as to the only nation other than Italy to serve ice cream in a bun. Fantastic! When you watch a foreign show such as this one, and your country is mentioned, that is heart warming. Then i get to remember that when we were brought to my grandmother's native Baler (yes, Manuel L. Quezon's)your friendly Mamang Sorbetero (ice cream vendor) will ask you which one you like, the apa (cone) or the soft bun. My brother is fond of eating his ice cream in a bun, but it gave me brain freeze so i never liked it. I tried it several times, it was very good especially in those days when the ice cream they sell was really top notch creamy, not the kind they sell in the c...

Quick and delicious quesadillas

From Teacher Carol(Philippines) Attached are notes to my first pandesal made a week after receipt of your EBook; I can't thank you enough for such valuable contribution you always share in the world of breadmaking; such craft is really something to thank God for. Please see my attachment. Thanks Download the original attachment 10 June 2010 Sher Villafranca Penuche Pastries Dear Sher, Hi, I’m one of those who have been blessed by having your EBook for our missions. I must tell you I was so elated at having the book but must control myself to start in haste so that I might be able to study the contents first before starting. My first baked pandesal was a success (at least for me as a starting breadmaker)! At last I was able to make one or did bake one! The following were the ingredients and procedures I had. Please help me out in some of the concerns I need answers to. Though I am not in your tutorial may I request that you critique the bread I did bake (min...

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When someone buys your book and gives you extra cash for the cost of the book, that tells you a lot. More than a lot. A gazillion a lot. A parking lot! Thank you Jorge, i just had the best sleep ever in 3 months since i got here. I woke up and it was shining bright outside. Not the usual dimly lit room i wake up to every day. Jorge just emailed me that he and his wife talked about giving me extra for the book they paid for and all because they can now have Pandesal anytime they want. Thank you, i knew it was worth waking up at 2 am just to type and retype, edit after edits, uploading the images after another deleting this and replacing it with a better image, browsing over 4 thousand images just to get that one perfect depiction of the step i am writing about. If one picture is missing, i redo the whole recipe all over again. That's 8 -10 hours of back breaking work. I can now say that i did really do a good job after all.

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...

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...

 I am posting parts of this email from a blog reader and this is not the first time i heard of such story. The experience is not confined to our senior friends out there, but also to some middle age guys who had once tasted the old Spanish version of pandesal probably from their lolos who were once bakers or from "panaderias" who still cling to the old style of baking breads.  The most common denominator? The pandesal should be crispy and slightly toasted outside, light but slightly chewy inside, a bit salty and not sweet, not creamy yellow in color and the "piece de resistance", that aftertaste once you chew on and swallow the bread. The flavor clings to the throat and top of your mouth cavity, slightly yeasty and indescribable really since this flavor is not artificial but is derived from the long hours those pandesal lovingly sit on the pans to proof. Yeast i suppose is not in abundance in those days, they probably use fresh compressed yeast and rely heavily on ...

I am posting here images of one Pandesal dough made-up and baked in two different ways. Pandesal A is shaped individually, B is cut baston style but not "singkit". The dough has a high hydration rate, an improvised plastic dough cutter was used. If you have read the post on how to roll the baston and cut the "singkit" style in my website, then this is a follow-up on how important it is to create the perfect "singkit" cuts, etc. This is not the "singkit " cut you want. The cut is open and wide, once the dough bakes, it will flatten and spread out. This is the "singkit" cut you want, again as i have posted before, my apologies to my Chinese students and friends, this is the term i learned from the bakers at Purefood's, i did not coin it myself. In my ebook, i included 70 images on how to do the baston and singkit cut, plus another version of the Pandesal free style shape or form. Pandesal A, shaped individually is rounde...

It's raining in New York, i have plans of tidying up my mother's garden which obviously makes her happy. It is back breaking owing to my very minute size and besides, i never garden like this back home. I am confined to a few pots of herbs and that's it. Now it is official, sweet basil plants do not like it cold, kinda like me!! My sage, chives, spring onions and parsley have already grown to 2-3 inches but the basil is still less than an inch. They should be at least 3 inches in height by now, with 6 - 8 leaves, it's been a month already!!! Anyway, we consume a lot of yogurts and fruit juices in large jugs here so i decided to use these containers to plant the seeds, not wanting to throw them away just yet.. I like to recycle the best possible way so i told my mother that we will plant some of the herbs in the larger plastic juice bottles, fill it up with organic composted materials which we have started a few months back and set them up in the deck where the tempera...

Baking Ingredients - Kitchen Krafts

This is in response to an email from Chris Porgee regarding his ensaimada, why it almost did not rise at all and why it was dense once baked.... Inside the ensaimada, light and fluffy texture, the dough melts in the mouth, and shelf life is up to 7 days.... The baked ensaimada, bursting out of the molds... You can see the dough tripling almost in size...This is how your bread should look like in the end. The "ovenspring" i was talking about, if your dough does not puff up after about 10 minutes of baking, then it is time to go back to the drawing board. HEIGHT OF THE DOUGH AFTER 3 HOURS OF PROOFING. I used a sponge and dough method here... I only use a No time dough method when i make breads with very low sugar, eggs and fat... Chris i hope these images and my response would give you an idea of what is wrong with your dough.. **Ensaimadas are made with high eggyolks, sugar and butter to really get that creamy light rich pastry goodness,... the problem is,...

Anyone baking breads for so long has to know which works for a particular recipe and not. I have been a long time user of Purefood's Flour for about 10 or so years and had to change only because i am here in New York.. I have only managed to use King Arthur Flour so far and it is okay... I am still looking for that extra push and volume but this could also be caused by other factors and not just the flour only.. so i am not ending the sentence... This weekend i made a regular lean dough using just 20 % whole wheat flour (king arthur) and Gold Medal's Better For Bread flour.. I am disappointed. Again, i am not closing the door yet, not until i have made at least 5 testings, but  i switched flours before and this never happened to me. The bread did produce a satisfactory height, there was no "oven spring" even if i used an almost 14 hour sponge, (strange) and the texture of the finished product in the crust is similar to one made from all purpose flour... Can someone...

  If there is food and wine pairings, there has to be bread and whatever is out there pairings...I know.. You do this too remember, like when you have nothing appetizing laid out for you because you do not eat pork and everyone else eats them. Poor me. So you make sure that when you bake breads, since you cannot be doing this everyday (unless you managed to sneak some from your class) you have to freeze at least a loaf or 4 pieces of sandwich rolls. This is your insurance. This will ensure you get to eat like the rest of the population. Or starve. Imagine you, teaching breads and you finish work, tired and all, and the helper saying to you" ma'am sher, kain na (let's eat)", When you ask her what's for lunch, she tells you it's pork adobo or pork sinigang, veggies with pork etc., If it isn't pork, then it is something almost similar, that is , a dish  swimming in lard. Now you know why i had to learn how to bake breads. Breads offer you an endless arra...