How To Bake Pandesal and Other Breads

I spent 3 days, (not the whole day) searching for the best Bread flour i can get my hands on and had a hard time doing so. To this day, i still have nightmares (oa ko no?)about leaving the still full 6 kilograms of Hard Wheat flour, top of the line Emperor Purefood's (free advert)in Fairview. Hmmm, let me see, i was wondering, what could i have left out instead? The bleached All purpose flour for Mama's Siopao, or the 3rd class flour for the Monay?(which my family has not tasted yet). The powdered milk? Nah. What i get from the internet is not branded. Mama's Malunggay pills? Nope. **incidentally, i will make a whole piece on this Malunggay phenomenon next. Bingo! The bread flour loses to all my mother's bilins, but i will make it sure that i will bring some next time. Promise. So the other day, i decided to go for Calbest HIgh Gluten Bread flour from Honeyville. Believe me, i visited about 100 sites just to even it out, and the most glaring truth is out there. Path...

My only solution to a chilly room, low protein bread flour, and every nasty thing that could happen to make your bread a failure, is THE GOOD OLE SPONGE. Since i left my bread flour ( i use Emperor and Wellington) in my kitchen/baking school, an overnight sponge is a must. I have been baking with one, but in Manila, if i forget to make an overnight sponge, any number will do. 4 hours, 5 or 6, as long as the sponge went through some fermentation cycle. Great results. So while enduring the last of the winter chills, i had to make some breads or i will die of boredom and this one right here is a kilogram batch of Spanish breads for my sister. It took some 8 hours to proof them, still not happy with the size but she was leaving in a few minutes so i had to bake them right away. The recipe is your basic Pan de sal dough, filling is a bit special because i added some yolks into it, something my students find exceptionally good even without the yolks. Word of Advice: Make a sponge,...

I am going to miss this bread and hopefully since i managed to bring in two kilograms of 3rd class flour, i can make a couple of batches this Summer. I want to bang my head on the wall for leaving out the bread flour, my brother's box was over weight and it seemed to have been not much of a big deal to Cathay, so darn lucky. I hate thinking about it, i left at least 10 kilograms of Wellington from my last bread making class, i am pretty sure no one will dare use it. I am back, my sniffling nose is gone, cough almost dried out although i still wake up in the middle of the night coughing, but it isn't as worst as before some two weeks ago. We went out to shop for groceries and met a Pinoy who stopped us while walking from TJ Maxx to Walmart and asked "excuse me, mga Pinoy kayo?". Turns out, Jeffrey is from Florida, just moved in last week and is having a hard time adjusting. We all do. Anyway, I have my bleached All Purpose so i can make my Mother and sister white...

Sipping warm berry zinger and salabat tea with a squeeze of half a lemon, one week and i am still reeling from this nightmarish of a cough and headache. So yes, i have not baked for a week now, a record feat since i was hospitalized 8 years ago. I know myself, i am a workhorse when it comes to baking, i even managed to make a dough night the before i left for New York, a cookie dough that is for my sister. If i get wind of you saying how much you loved the cookie, you will get a batch a few days after. That is me. To some Pinoys it is OA, KSP, whatever. Anyway, so Yola emailed me last night, told me oh, yes, you just renewed your Silver package, so da da da da da. I was told to unpublish my site, then republish it. I think my finger got kalyo, doing this over and over so i gave up and emailed them back. If my site does not go back, well, i found a new home. Please go over to my Weebly site and i promise to make it look better than my yola. Still a work in progress, i am trying t...

Something terrible happened, because i was busy with my flight back to New York, in between schedules of baking lessons and cake decorating, my site which is up for renewal bogged down. So i paid the other day what was required, but site was still unavailable. I don't know if Yolasite wants me to pay for the whole year because i only paid the monthly fee. If their service was the best there is, my site should be up and running right? So, even if i am down with a flu right now, i went back to my old WEEBLY SITE, PLEASE BEAR WITH ME AS I TRY TO MAKE IT LOOK AS NEAT AS MY YOLASITE. here is the link for those who want to see it, http::/bakinglessons.weebly.com, maybe this will open new possibilities, i am kinda bored with yola's features anyway, so i will give it a try. Please forgive me as i try to scour my image files so i can post the beautiful images you all love to see. thank you

The boys had fun yesterday baking pizza, and i had a blast too. Problem is, Carlo the oldest of my nephew (19 yrs old) is nursing a cough and a horrible cold (just to make it all the more perfect). Being a cancer survivor, just one sneeze even 2 meters away, as long as you are in my line of sight, mahahawa ako. 100% affirmative. When my niece who is 3 years old goes inside my room for a quick chat(meaning mangungulit lang), i will be coughing the whole night and the succeeding days thereafter. The toppings were simple, you know kids, they hate stuff they do not know especially when the spelling does not compute. Carlo helped me with the mixing, he weighed everything and i greased the pans. I just think now that he is a lot older, he is more into it, or maybe it was his stomach making him oblige.?? When Angelica got wind of what we were doing outside, the caffeine in my coffee kicked in. She was the trigger. The quiet storm. And, just to make her stop bugging us, because she will rep...

Breads proofing, Day 1 of my Hands on class which i call the Pandesal session. I decided to do some tweaking with the regular varieties i usually do with the students so since i have Ube Haleya left over from Christmas, i made some Ube Rolls. Using 30 grams of the sweet yeast dough, we filled it up with pre made Ube, rolled it into a coil and placed them on cupcake liners into muffin pans. See the Ube? The same dough, no filling, 30 grams as well, but with toppings. That right there is one dough with two variations. The same dough can also be made into Special Pandesal if you so wish, depending on your mood which i suggest you do if you are a beginner. In fact, what i teach my class is that, it is part of a sound bakery management, a true test of your baking skill and business acumen to be able to create as many variations, basta bagay sa dough or masa. Something like, 1 sack of flour, 12 variations, but the dough you use to make Pandesal, Spanish Bread, Pan de coco, Soft Bu...

Pineapple and Ham Coffeecake I recycled the ham that Mayor Hagedorn gave my brother, the kids do not like it and i do not eat pork so i thought of cooking it with pineapples and brown sugar to serve as a filling to a sweet yeast dough. Cook the pineapples, ham and brown sugar until the sugar becomes thick. Roll the dough and place the filling. I used 15% whole wheat in the dough just to give it a slight healthy edge, they won't know it is there anyway. Cool the filling first before you roll the dough flat. I gave these treats to my sister last Media Noche because i know my brother in law would love it. Pulled a couple of pieces for Manong Oca (her driver who always picks me up when i need a ride)to taste.

January schedule for Commercial Bread making is moved to 20 23 25 February is on 1 3 and 5 still. I am adding a cupcake class with decorating on January 22 29 and 31, only to give in to requests (i just hope they really mean it, because most often they don't) Please, please bring your containers, a large 3-4 inch height rectangle or square any size, just not one of those mini tiny disposable plastic for left over foods. You are bringing breads you baked, you share them, you eat them while you go home tired and you take pictures of them. I don't understand some students who arrive without one even if they drive in cars, pretty easy to put them at the back of the seat, after all the promise of sharing your breads with your loved ones seems to me an irresistible proposition. ??? Christmas red Roses made with Royal Icing ( Day 2), the icing is old but i still managed to salvage this one, just not good to eat anymore. Purple Buttercream (Italian Merengue)Day 1 The 260 so...