Both Roger and Michael's Filipino heritage resulted in a suggestion that we try the Filipino bread pandesal, which is Spanish for "salt bread", but it isn't really salty. I had never heard of it, but it was described as a kind of milk bread. Despite the fact that they look a bit like dinner rolls, they are usually eaten for breakfast or lunch, and you typically dip them in coffee.
I read through a few recipes, and some of the comments on this one from The Little Epicurean had comments saying it was just like the pandesal they remembered from the Philippines, so that was the one I picked.
I tried converting the recipe to metric instead, but I think I failed pretty miserably. The end bread tasted OK though. I don't have a mixer, so I had to knead it, and it was... an interesting experience. I didn't want to measure flour with cups, as it's inaccurate, so I looked up how much flour is in 1 cup, and it said 120g. But then the milk I measured with a measuring jug. ~_~ I'm amazing. Anyway, I think I ended up with too much liquid in my dough. Fortunately, the day before, I had stumbled upon this post on Seasoned Advice (the cooking Stack Exchange site): https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21675/why-stretch-and-fold-vs-traditional-kneading-of-bread-dough
TL;DR: Instead of kneading dough, you can stretch it out, and fold it over itself, rotate and do it again. Then let the dough rest for about 45 minutes, and repeat a few times. It's a technique used for high hydration doughs, because it's too sticky to knead properly. The stretching and resting allows the gluten bonds to form.
Ingredients
9.5g active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup whole milk, warmed to 37 degrees Celsius
360g plain flour
180g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
42g butter, room temp
1/3 cup white sugar
2 large eggs, lightly whisked
breadcrumbs
Makes 24 rolls.
Method
1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk with 2 tsp of the sugar. Leave for 5-10 minutes until the yeast has activated (you should be able to smell it, and it looks bubbly).
2. Whisk the flours and salt in a bowl (doesn't need to be that big as you'll be pouring this into the other mixture, just big enough to whisk it without spilling).
3. Mix the milky yeast in a large bowl with the sugar, egg and butter. The butter will be kinda lumpy in the mix, but that's OK, just try to mix it in a bit, but once you add the flour, it'll mix together.
4. Add the flour into the mix one third at a time. Mix together, it'll be super liquidy. Once it has all come together, put on to a lightly floured surface and "knead".
I put knead in quotation marks because the dough is so wet it's kinda hard. I ended up doing a weird attempt at stretch and fold. At the start, the dough was just a glob and too hard to stretch, so I had to kinda pull it up as much as I could without it breaking, and fold it over. I did this for a few minutes, until the dough started holding together enough for me to do this:
5. Once it starts to get smooth, put it in an oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Place in a warm place to proof for an hour. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Before:
After:
6. Divide into 24 pieces, roll the top in breadcrumbs.
(I had some choc-chips that are going to go off in a month, so I mixed some in, but I know that's not traditional!)
Leave to proof for 20 minutes. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until golden brown.
They were nice and soft on the inside, and the breadcrumbs made them slightly crunchy on the outside. Most of the posts said that if you don't get crumbs all over your shirt while eating these, then they're not real pandesal!
I found it was a bit burned on the bottom, and the author said to add a second sheet underneath to avoid that.
Next batch, I tried to make like hot cross buns, but unfortunately, I found the middle ones didn't cook as nicely as the ones on the edge..
But having the second sheet underneath did reduce the browning on the bottom.
As the comp was on a Monday, I figured I could leave some dough in the fridge overnight, and divide into pieces in the morning, and go for my run while the oven heats up. Surprisingly, this is what I woke up to in the morning.
I saw another recipe that suggested a different way of shaping the rolls: http://www.saveur.com/gallery/shaping-pan-de-sal
You stretch it out and roll it up like a long sausage, then make diagonal cuts in the sausage to make all the pieces. My dough was a bit too wet for that, unfortunately, and just got stuck to the counter.
So I divided it into two pieces and tried to do it with those.
Anyway, same process, coat the top with breadcrumbs and bake.
Unfortunately, Michael and MrBrioche didn't have time to bake this weekend, and Roger was working from home, so I ended up competing against myself. I've never had a pandesal before, so I wasn't sure what it is supposed to taste like. Michael said mine were too much like brioche. He said I needed more milk, but I think he meant less butter, as my dough was too wet to add much more milk. He also said that pandesal should be completely covered with breadcrumbs, not just the top.
On a side note: the choc-chip ones were delicious. The dough is slightly sweet, so the choc-chips add a nice touch. MrFodder confirms that the plain pandesal was delicious dipped in coffee, with the bread absorbing the liquid really well.
Unfortunately, the if you leave the rolls out, they become stale really quickly. The one I kept overnight in a container fared somewhat OK, but it was still not as nice as when it came out of the oven. I froze the leftover ones, not sure how they'll be, but we'll see!
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