Pandesal
The name means "salt bread", though the rolls are faintly sweet. Two features set them apart from most buns: they are rolled in breadcrumbs, which gives a matt, lightly rough surface instead of a shiny crust, and they are set close together with the cut side up. The touching sides never brown and stay as soft as cotton wool.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Dough 25 min
- Rising 90 min
- Shaping 20 min
- Proving 50 min
- Baking 18 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneMix everything except the butter
Combine the flour, yeast, sugar, warm milk and egg, mix and wait 10 minutes, then add the salt. Knead for 8 minutes. The dough is sweet and lightly enriched — sugar slows the yeast, so it rises more slowly than a plain roll.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Work in the butter piece by piece
Add the soft butter a piece at a time, only once the gluten has developed, and knead a further 6 minutes. Fat added at the start coats the flour and blocks the network — the rolls would come out dense rather than fluffy.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Rise 90 minutes until doubled
Leave in an oiled bowl until doubled. The finger test: a dent pressed a centimetre deep should fill back slowly and not completely.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Roll into a log and cut equal pieces
Roll the dough into a rectangle, roll it tightly into a long log and cut into 16 equal pieces. Cutting rather than rounding is deliberate: the cut face is tacky and that is what the breadcrumbs cling to.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Cut, not rounded — the cut face must stay tacky.Roll each piece in breadcrumbs
Roll the pieces in fine breadcrumbs on every side. That coating gives pandesal its characteristic matt, faintly rough surface — without it the roll is simply a soft milk bun.
Ingredients: 120 g breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs on every side, cut faces included.Set them close, cut side up
Arrange the pieces on a lined tray cut side up, 2 cm apart, cover and leave for 50 minutes. As they rise they will touch. Those contact points never brown and stay white and soft — the signature of pandesal. Towards the end, heat the oven to 180°C.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Cut sides up, edges touching as they prove.Bake 18 minutes at 180°C without browning
Bake 16–18 minutes at 180°C, until the tops are barely golden. Pandesal should stay pale: browned hard it loses the softness that is its whole point. Cool on a rack and eat warm, with butter and coffee.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 250 ml milk · 7 g dried yeast · 70 g sugar · 8 g salt · 60 g butter · 1 pcs egg
Before you start
The breadcrumbs must be fine
Coarse panko falls off in the oven and leaves bare patches. You need the finest breadcrumbs, almost dust — those cling to moist dough and form an even layer.
How it is eaten in the Philippines
In the morning, still warm, dipped in coffee or hot chocolate. Splitting one and filling it with cheese, jam or ube spread is equally common. Pandesal is there what a breakfast roll is elsewhere.
Reheating
Refresh for 4 minutes at 160°C. Pandesal stales within a day, but frozen and reheated it comes back almost to form — freeze as soon as it cools, not the next day.
