[Filipino Recipes] Ube Cheese Pandesal (2024)

FAQs

What is special about pandesal? ›

Pandesal is the most popular bread in the Philippines for a good reason! With a golden, crumb-coated exterior, slightly sweet taste, and soft, fluffy texture, this Filipino-style bread roll is delicious on its own or with your choice of filling. Perfect for breakfast or as a snack!

Why is my pandesal so hard? If your pandesal is hard out of the oven (and not burnt), it might not have proofed enough and the gluten did not develop properly. Try to test your yeast to make sure it's not expired by blooming it in warm milk before adding into your flour.

Once it's gone past two days, refrigerate pandesal as it may starts to grow mold. The texture won't be the same – they will no longer have the airy fluffiness than it did on day one – but will still be good.

Why is my pandesal dense and not fluffy? A dense and pandesal can be caused by using inaccurate proportions of ingredients, for example, not enough liquid or fat, or using too much flour. Another reason is under rising.

A freshly baked pandesal is great on its own, but Filipinos most commonly eat it dipped in coffee or hot chocolate, filled with breakfast staples like Spam and eggs, or topped with rich spreads like peanut butter, coconut jam, or kesong puti (fresh farmer's cheese).

Pandesal is the most popular local bread in the Philippines.

Commercial bread is softer due to the steam process used by bakeries, which is made to keep bread hydrated and fresh. Use cold water in a pan and put it on a rack beneath your bread to create steam.

Pandesal, also known as Pan de sal (Spanish: pan de sal, lit. "salt bread") is a staple bread roll in the Philippines commonly eaten for breakfast. It is made of flour, yeast, sugar, oil, and salt.

They're delicious with peanut butter (as I've told you) or smeared with salted butter and honey or jam. Pandesal make a lightly sweet counterpoint to a savory breakfast sandwich, and while I haven't tried this yet, I think pandesal and sausage gravy might be the Deep South-Filipino fusion dish the world needs.

(Alternatively, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight until puffy and soft, between 10 and 12 hours). Thirty minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350°F (180°C). Bake pandesal until puffed and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Is pandesal a Filipino food? ›

Origins. Pandesal is essentially a Philippines history lesson in bread form, though its origin stories are a bit murky. Until the Portuguese arrived in the Philippines, the indigenous diet was primarily focused on rice. "Wheat isn't native to the country," explains Ponseca.

These products are only baked with fresh ingredients; therefore, they only have a short room temperature shelf life of around 4-5 days. However, their life can be extended by up to a month if they are tightly-sealed and stored in the freezer.

Why is the crust on my pandesal so hard? Your bread should be fluffy on the inside and slightly crusty on the outside, but the crust should not be rock hard. If your crust is too hard, it could be the result of under kneading your bread. Make sure your dough is completely smooth after kneading.

Your dough can become sticky when you add too much water or the flour isn't suitable for the type of dough you are making. Over proofing or fermenting the dough can also result in the gluten structure weakening causing sticky dough.

Breadcrumbs - you'll roll the dough in breadcrumbs just before putting them in the oven. This gives the rolls that classic pandesal outer texture. Plain breadcrumbs are preferred, but I've used Italian breadcrumbs in a pinch when I didn't have plain breadcrumbs on hand and they tasted just as delicious!

Due to the fact that the Philippines does not grow wheat and imports most of its supplies — something that remains true today — bakers had to turn to a more affordable version of flour, resulting in the soft, doughy bread that is recognized as pandesal today.

Pandesal flourished in the American colonial era in the early 1900s, when cheaper American wheat became readily available. It has since become a staple breakfast bread in the Philippines.

Pandesal is a type of bread roll that is popular in the Philippines. It is a staple in Filipino cuisine and is often eaten for breakfast or as a snack. Pandesal is made from a simple dough of flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and water, which is shaped into small rounds and then rolled in breadcrumbs before baking.

Traditional pan desal dough had little sugar and no eggs

Bakers started adding and then increasing the amount of sugar so that today's pa desal can have as much as 18 percent to 20 percent sugar content.