Learnings from Bread Baking

I embarked on a home panaderia project last May. My target was to learn how to bake Filipino bread buns. I have so far baked the following: dinner rolls (for practice!), ensaymada, Spanish bread, pandesal, putok, monay and pambonete. All of it was edible, but it wasn't necessarily the taste I aimed for.

Here are some things I realized I should have done/had before I embarked on my home panaderia project -

(1) Equipment - if you bake cupcakes/cookies, you just need a few more things -

Dough slicer
Weighing scale
Bigger baking mat
Rolling pin

Of course you should already have a baking bowl, hand mixer (stand mixer better!), measuring cups/spoons, spatula, oil brush, wire rack etc.

(2) Kneading abilities - oh kneading requires patience and technique! I watched a couple of videos to learn how to knead properly.

(3) Blooming yeast - some recipes don't require you to bloom yeast, but if you need to make sure the milk isn't too hot.

(4) Use the right kind of milk - I discovered that there are certain types of milk that go well with bread and the taste changes depending on what brand of milk you use. This is true for both powdered and fresh milk.

(5) Use the right weight depending on the bun you are baking - this is something I need to understand better since sometimes the dough goes so big! Haha.

Doesn't look like putok or monay hahaha. It tasted good though.

(6) Practice shaping the dough several times before going through the whole dough - my pambonete, ensaymada and putok did not look like pambonete, ensaymada or putok after baking it hahaha.

I've also embarked on second attempts to find the best recipe. I'm getting a bit adventurous and changing things here and there. What about you? Have you tried baking Filipino bread buns?

You can check out my attempts on this playlist.

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My Home Panaderia: Putok and Monay

I gave my cleaning lady some putok (Starbread) and monay the last time she visited. When she came today she asked me when was I going to bake again. She said she liked it very much! I'm always nervous about giving away my baked goods. I want it to be perfect before I share it to the world. I'm so glad she liked it.

I ended up making putok and monay because I forgot to add the butter in the first dough when I mixed the ingredients. I only added it just before I laid it to rest. I thought it would fail so I made a second batch which I turned into monay. Both turned out well and Sweetie said the putok was softer. I'm just happy both turned out edible haha.

Here's how I made it and Sweetie's reaction when he tried the bread -

The ingredients -

Yeast Mixture

1/2 cup warm milk
1/2 cup water
2 tsp instant yeast
1 Tbsp sugar

Dough

4 cups bread flour or APF
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk powder
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp salted butter

Egg Wash

1 egg
1 Tbsp milk


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Baked Spanish Bread for the First Time

Ahh after baking dinner rolls and ensaymada I felt I had enough experience to try baking one of my all-time favorite Filipino buns - Spanish Bread! I honestly have no idea how Spanish Bread came about, but I've been eating it since I was a child. It's one of the most common buns you can buy in any corner bakery in the Philippines. It is best eaten warm.

The last time I had authentic Spanish Bread was in January when I was still in Manila. It is very expensive to buy in Lucky Plaza -- can go up to SG$2! That's about 80 pesos! I decided to bake Spanish Bread during the long weekend two weeks ago.

I think I made the right decision of baking Spanish Bread after baking ensaymada. It was quite challenging for me since it was my first time baking with bread flour and margarine. Getting the margarine to combine properly with the other ingredients was challenging. To prepare for this challenge I watched a good number of videos to understand what I had to do.

Here's how my first attempt at baking Spanish Bread went -

One of the most challenging aspects of baking buns is sizing them equally. I didn't have a kitchen scale, dough slicer and rolling pin when I made this so the buns came out in odd sizes hehe. I also learned from previous baking adventures that I had to reduce the oven temperature because I now have a fan oven. It behaves very differently from the convection oven in our previous apartment.

I halved the recipe as usual. I hope when I'm a bit more confident about my baking I'll be able to send some to my friends and when I get home to make some for my Mom. Yay!

My next baking adventure will be Pandesal!!!

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Tried Baking Ensaymada, Challenging Siya!

So I've started to tick off the list of Pinoy breads I'd like to learn how to bake. I read that pandesal is tough to bake so I thought I'd try something else first. I decided on ensaymada because I love this sweet, cheesy bread. I chose the "panaderia" version and not the soft, fluffy one that commercial bakeries make.

Ensaymada is my second attempt at baking bread. My first attempt was dinner rolls. I'm glad I started with dinner rolls because I figured it would be easy and fool-proof. Baking ensaymada was quite challenging. I only started getting the set-up right on the second pan. The sizes of the bread came out all different since I don't have a kitchen scale yet. I'll probably buy more baking stuff when I feel like I'm going to do this every week (maybe after I bake one more bread).

It took me most of the day to bake the ensaymada. I always finish just before dinner haha. We gobbled up a few and left the rest for breakfast the next day. Here's a vlog on my first attempt at baking ensaymada -

Next on my list is Spanish bread!


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The Home Panaderia is Open! My First Attempt at Baking Bread

Two decades... That's how long it's taken for me to learn how to be comfortable at cooking. The only thing I new how to cook until ten years ago was spaghetti and lasagna and I only knew how to bake peanut butter cookies and crinkles. 

I was forced to learn to cook for survival. I got a lot of encouragement from my Ate who's a good cook. She told me that her initial attempts at cooking didn't always work. I still cannot figure out how she turned sweet and sour pork green. She said my brother-in-law still ate it and I thought if she could do it I could learn too. 

I tried cooking and baking like a science experiment. I rarely veer away from the recipe. It's my Dad and siblings who have that talent at winging it while cooking. Miggy actually has the talent for it. My attempt at teaching him through "Recipes for my Son" is just a way for me to encourage him to cook more.

I wanted to try baking bread as early as late March, but yeast was hard to come by. I only found some through Lazada and it took weeks to arrive. I was already researching for easy bread recipes I could try. I heard that our Pinoy breads are a little hard to make, so I decided to make dinner rolls for my first attempt. 

My cousin who runs a bakery in Naga City said she doesn't have the patience for baking bread. She prefers to bake cake. I told her I like baking bread because it gives me opportunity to rest in-between the proofing period. I followed the recipe I chose step by step and save for the uneven sizes of the dough it turned out well. I kinda regretted baking only half the recipe since we finished everything immediately haha. 

My new mantra now is, "Just keep baking to learn more!" My plan is to attempt ensaymada next!

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My Favorite Pinoy Bread

I love bread. I'd be absolutely happy if I lived beside a bakery. During my elementary years we always visited Moderna Bakery (now called Casa Moderna) in Naga City. It is the oldest bakery in Bicol and is now run by my cousin and niece. When we would stay overnight there we would usually stay in the room beside the bakery. It was absolute heaven, but the bakers would start preparing bread in the wee hours of the morning. To this day they still bake in the original pugon my Tito built over 60 years ago.

Here's a list of my favorite Pinoy bread:

Pandesal, best eaten during breakfast and fresh out of the oven. I learned how to drink coffee when my parents would dip a piece of pandesal in coffee before giving it to me. Absolute love.

Spanish Bread, oh my, just thinking about it makes me want to go to Bag of Beans for some delicious spanish bread. The best one has a well-balanced amount of butter and sugar in it. This bread is also usually available in neighborhood bakeries.

*It's the one at the back.

Panbonete, the home of the best panbonete is Casa Moderna in Naga City. Be sure to be there just before sunset because it's usually gone within an hour.

Marquina/Markina, this bread was made by Casa Moderna way back when I was a kid. They rarely make it now. This bread is quite heavy on the tummy and doesn't really need any add ons to be eaten. I'm not sure if the term I used is correct, but this is one of my super favorite in the list. (Sorry no photo available since it's been years since I last got to eat this. It looks a bit like the French Baker monay below but the consistency is very different).

Monay, I prefer the gigantic, pillow-like ones. I don't see this often anymore so I make do with what's available at French Baker.

And this is why I can never go on a keto diet. I can't live without bread! What about you what's your favorite Pinoy bread?