Pandesal

Pan De Sal, a very popular breakfast for filipinos. It is usually paired with butter, cheese, or peanut butter together with hot choco or coffee.

Over the years the pandesal evolved from a plain recipe of flour, sugar, salt and vegetable oil to a more sweeter and richer recipe which includes butter margarine and butter milk powder. The traditional way in making pandesal is for the dough to be manually mixed by bare hands (masang-kamay) and rolled into long thin logs (baston) and then cut into  appropriate sizes according to weight and price. It is usually "yeast-raised" by dry yeast for a period of time before cooking it in the oven.

The recipe is just half of the battle in making a delicious pandesal. the other half relies on the way it is cooked. I prefer the toasted and crispy (pinoy) over the medium cooked (mistisa). The secret in making the pandesal crispy without making it hard by toasting is the cooking method.

First, you should preheat the oven, this is done for faster cooking. The usual oven has two layers. The lower portion and the upper portion. After pre-heating the oven you can now place the pandesal at the lower portion of the oven and then cook it in low heat first until the bottom of the pandesal is cooked, the bottom should be brown enough (swelo) you can observe for the "swelo" by manually raising the pandesal and check if it's brown underneath. After the pandesal is cooked underneath the next step is to cook it the upper portion of the oven. raise the pandesal at the upper portion of the oven and then turn the heat to the max (biglang-apoy. warning: you should gradually check it because it can easily burn) cook until the top becomes toasted. This makes the pandesal brown and crispy without making it hard.