How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

hERE IS A PREVIEW OF WHAT IS IN STORE FOR THE CAKE AND CUPCAKE DECORATING CLASS, I MIXED IN BOTH THE FONDANT AND BUTTERCREAM TO DECORATE THIS BATCH OF BANANA CUPCAKES. I did this in a jiffy because the cupcakes are fast disappearing, starting with 32 pieces and i was left with only 11 pieces to decorate. Normally you do the cakes in one day, make the decorations in another day, be it a day before or days before but i did everything in one whole day because my colds are getting worst, afraid i will never get this done at all. Making my simple pink flower Drying it up on a flower former Cupcake with a Skirt Buttercream Rose on a Cupcake Gumpaste Flowers and Buttercream on a Cupcake Mini Rose with Buttercream Flower Now they can eat it, but not before i take photos please! Okay, so i still have some left the morning after but only because the boys had so much icing too eat already. I guess. My favorite so i am not letting anyone eat it. See you in my class, i will...

You may think that the breads you see stacked in bakery shelves have been made from different kinds of doughs. You see about 12-15 varieties of breads, sweet and savory, filled and plain, topped and slashed, fruits, nuts, coconuts and cream. What you do not know is that almost 80% of these breads come from just one basic dough. Your signature dough, whatever you decide to use as the master baker becomes the base of most of your products. You do not need to make 6-7 kinds of doughs just because you need to make Spanish Bread, Bitso, Pan de coco, Almond Crescents, Pan de Leche etc., Just one dough. Plus your creativity. The dough below comes from the hotdog and hamburger bun dough posted previously in this blog. Feel like making smaller rolls, which we call Pan de Limon, go ahead and use a square baking pan and scale them into smaller 20-22 gram portions depending on the baking pan you are using. Topping with Poppy Seeds Bake at 325 F for 12-15 minutes. The same dough used to ...

I am just checking the calendar, pretty soon i will be posting the schedule :)(that excited huh:) for my October class which will run up until the time i finish my annual medical check ups. You know how these hospital labs work, sometimes the digitized mammogram unit is under repair, the female technician is only available on a Wednesday, then you show up on a Wednesday and she is not there so you go back another week etc.,etc., I will stay maybe up until March, hopefully get all the lab work done for my peace of mind. You cannot afford to get sick here in the US if you have no insurance, my mother paid 500 bucks for a checkup, and another 500 for a blood sugar test, all done in 20 minutes. Whew! este whe! I trust my doctor, been with her since 2004 and i am going back to her, never mind the expense of paying the ticket, and the horrible backlash of the pain in the you know where after sitting for hours. I would rather not go through another airplane ride, especially on long flights su...

Exactly, that's why they call it Soft Bun. Referring to Hamburger Buns, Hotdog Buns, Pan de Limon, Pan de Agua, Pan de everything else that is supposed to be soft, meaning edible soft for a sandwich or plain snacking, without putting it in a toaster to make it again, soft. One of my students told me her Soft Buns gets moldy in 2 days, and i say no way. The recipe that i have does not have any Calcium Propionate, no anti-mold of some sort and they stay fresh for 5 days. After 5 days, spots of greenish mold starts to appear at the bottom of the buns and you know it has ended its stay on earth. Which is just about the average shelf life of yeast dough breads, it has nothing to do with your formula, it is just how Mother Nature intended it to be. What commercial bakeries do is to use an anti-mold to keep it mold free for up to ahem, you know how many days ( i might get sued over this). Incidentally, it is amazing how many law firm ads are here in the US, more than shampoo commercia...

Cooking Beef Caldereta (Beef Stew), slow food style, really slow since it's been 2 hours already and i am sitting right next to it, in my Aunt's dining table so i can stir it every now and then. Nope, don't want to use a pressure cooker, i am good. If after 4 hours and this thing has not tenderized yet, then i will start to sweat, i think i used too much black pepper, not that i don't mind but i know what she's going through. Going through chemo your taste buds are super sensitive to anything you lay on it, cold water, too spicy foods, salty, etc., Granting you can swallow the foods at all, soft foods that are easily digestible is a gift, so i made her some vegetable soup, just whatever i have scoured from her pantry, the soffrito, garbanzos, canned beans, a can of clam chowder and potatoes etc., I added a pinch of turmeric and she like it, the color and the flavor as well, not too much though, or it will ruin the soup base. Okay, there is a lingering heat in my...

Baking the baguettes Baked Baguettes, lovely and not bad for a first timer. Proofing the Pandesal Proofing the Cinnamon Rolls, brought with me only a dozen of cinnamon roll molds so we have to improvise. Baked Cinnamon Rolls Focaccia and Pizza Ensaimada baking, too bad i could not bring all of my ensaimada molds so i had to use only a dozen just for the student to see the original coiled shape. Loaves baking in the oven. Ham, Cheese and Pineapple Crescent Rolls These are just some of the breads made in my hands on class. 6-7 days plus 3-4 days of practical activity where you get to bake breads on your own while i supervise. January 2011

Being here in the West Coast just makes one think, why in the world did G-d invent the East Coast? For real, living through all that shovelling, treading into thick snow when you need to go somewhere like you have a choice not to and the nose bleeds. After i arrived in LA, the sunny ambience greeted me with a new promise, things here can be promising, so we'll see. My nose stopped bleeding after 2 days, and the best part, proofing does not have to be for two days when i make ensaimada!!!! Temperature inside the house reaches an average of 68 F which is not bad compared to our kitchen which is at 62F, still need to wear two layers, but no more coats or thick sweaters for a third layer. January 2011, West Coast. Where i am at right now, large rosemary shrubs 5 feet tall (amazing huh), bay leaves, orange trees ( squeeze them for breakfast). Yup, i am still baking, in my student's house not mine, but i am still baking, which is more than a mere mortal like me can ask for. I w...

My last entry probably for this week and the next, will be traveling to California next week for a baking assignment, if any of you guys need help just get in touch with me through my email. Anyway, holiday season is over, done with the fatty foods and sweet starchy treats, need to purge but not starve so i made this Flax Seed Buck Wheat Bread. Still very difficult for a novice, you need to have that patience otherwise you will probably just throw the dough away and head to your local grocery. The buckwheat in the dough needs to be just under 15%, otherwise, the dough will rise till next xmas. It will be flat, no personality at all, and will fare well just as a flatbread. Same thing with the flax seed, i love biting into this crunchy seeds one by one but that is the thing, you either grind it to get the benefits of the seeds or chew it and get it ground up in your mouth. I have tried using the gound seeds directly into the dough but it has a retarding effect on the fermentation, ma...

Due to the cold weather, any butter higher than 25 %, eggyolks higher than 15% and sugar at the same level will not do well in our kitchen. Meaning, it will be quite sluggish. I had to cover the mixer first during resting time, i prepared a sponge the night before, but it still was not enough. After i mixed the dough, i soon realized that the dough was just way too cold and it will not rise. I added more yeast, of course computing the sugar and the flour again, small amounts just to add to the first batch. Good thing the dough was not fully done mixing, or else i will be in trouble. After adding more yeast, (must have added about 4%), i covered the dough using a large plastic. I left it like this for 15 minutes, then remixed it again. I took out the dough hook, covered the bowl with two layers of plastic, then three large kitchen towels to seal the bowl tight. I placed the bowl in our pantry which is 10-12 degrees cold and left it there overnight. Day 1 is over. I started at ...

Below are images of the CINNAMON ROLLS AND ENSAIMADA that Perla and I did in her house using the ......5 quart commercial mixer and her old 1974 Kitchen Aid. We had the time to wait for the dough to rise, not in a rush so they came out perfectly. The good thing about Perla's kitchen is that anything i asked for, is there. It's like being in my own kitchen except that my mixer is way too large compared to hers. THE ENSAIMADA, LIGHT AND FLUFFY, BUTTERY CREAMY! DONE AT PERLA WEE'S HOUSE USING THE MIXER I REFER TO BELOW. Not mentioning the brand of mixer, this one caught me and the girls who took the baking class last Sunday. Had i known that this commercial mixer will not take our sweet yeast dough, would have brought with me at least a kilogram of Pandesal and Spanish bread so the girls could see the texture of the rolls much, much better. I was surprised that the manual for the mixer (which i read the night before the class) says that i can mix up to 4 lbs for a d...