Pinoy Pandesal Recipe—The Corner Bakery Edition

The Pinoy Pandesal is the most ubiquitous bread in the Philippines. From Batanes to Sulu, this small, fluffy, soft and somewhat sweet breakfast roll is as much a staple as the white rice is.

Eaten plain; dunked in hot coffee or chocolate; used as sandwich bun for hotdogs, corned beef, cheese, and scrambled eggs; or slathered with jelly, jam, marmalade and mayonnaise, the Pinoy Pandesal is the all-around combo for any snack or meal.

I’m told that the current price for a 2x2(inch)-sized pandesal is 2 pesos and 50 cents, about 6 pennies. That floored me a bit, because the last time I was in Manila, the regular pandesal was just a peso a piece.

But in the Sunshine State, that’s a small price to pay for an honest-to-goodness freshly-baked pandesal. The ones we used to buy from a Pinoy store in Jacksonville costs about $4 for 10 pieces.

I didn’t like how the commercial pandesal tasted—bland, yeasty and ‘old stock’. I preferred the corner bakery taste so I decided to bake my own.

There were many pandesal recipes that I found with BFF Google, but the closest to the taste that I wanted was Panlasang Pinoy’s recipe.

Of course, I twiddled with the recipe again...and came up with a closer approximation of the corner bakery’s Pinoy Pandesal which I often had for breakfast back home.

The Pinoy Pandesal Recipe

You'll need:

3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
3 packets (21 g each) of Fleishcmann’s rapid rise yeast
4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg, beaten
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 cup breadcrumbs

1. Fully dissolve 2 tablespoons of sugar in the milk, then nuke the mixture for 45 seconds on the microwave to heat it up. Make sure that the milk temperature is between 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit so as not to kill the yeast. (Too cold or too hot, and the dough won't ever rise.)

2. Pour all the yeast onto the milk, mix gently with a fork, then let stand for 10 minutes—until the yeast has foamed (evidence that it has proofed).

3. While waiting for the yeast to proof, sift the flour and the sugar, then combine all dry ingredients thoroughly in another bowl.

4. Hollow out a crater in the middle of the flour mixture and add the beaten egg, butter and oil. With the spatula, fold the flour into the egg-butter-oil mixture until thoroughly incorporated. Where there are flour balls, crush in your hands until the flour is crumbly.

5. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients half a cup at a time, folding the whole enchilada as you go. (Mixing them together all at once will result in a tough dough and bread. Oh, and make sure that the yeast has proofed—or foamed—before using, otherwise, your dough will not rise.) Once everything is thoroughly mixed, transfer the dough onto a flat surface.

6. Sprinkle a handful of flour onto the kneading surface. Knead the dough until you've achieved a refined texture. (Hint: the exterior is smooth, the dough is elastic, and it doesn’t stick to your kneading surface.) As you knead, continue to dust a thin layer of flour onto the counter top where you're kneading.

7. Form the dough into a round shape, let stand in the mixing bowl, and cover with a warm, damp cheesecloth. Let the dough rise for an hour.

8. Cut the dough into four parts. Roll into logs, about 20 inches long and 2 inches in diameter. For best results, wrap the dough in wax paper, then shape into logs.

9. Cut the dough into 2-inch by 3-inch pieces (or your desired shape), coat with plain breadcrumbs, and set on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Set aside for 10 more minutes or until the dough has risen further.

10. While the pandesal dough stands, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

11. Bake the dough in the oven for 15 minutes, or until desired browning is achieved. Take out from oven and serve hot.

Overall, it’ll take you about two hours—from prep to baking—before you can enjoy your hot pandesal with coffee, tea, and some scrambled eggs.

So there you go...how to bake your own Pinoy Pandesal. Mind you, it’s an easy enough recipe but it took me five tries to get my pandesal perfect just the way I wanted it.

If you have any problems with this recipe, ask away in the comment section and I’ll try to help you troubleshoot. It’d also be fun if you can share with me the tweaks you’ve made and the results you’ve had with this Pinoy Pandesal recipe. ;)