Panaderia-style pandesal · Baked September 12, 2026
I went back to a simpler dough: all-purpose flour, water and oil. No milk, eggs, butter or tangzhong. I wanted a lighter, Filipino bakery-style crumb.
This batch tastes good. The sugar is just right, and the crust color is much better than the earlier 350°F bake. It’s still not as airy as I’d like, and the dough needs to be easier to handle.
The sweetness can stay. The process needs another go.
Batch photos
Batch notes
- Flavor: Good.
- Sweetness: Just right.
- Crust and color: Good; much better than the previous 350°F batch.
- Bake: 335°F / 168°C for 20 minutes worked well.
- Covered: Last 4 minutes.
- Handling: Needs improvement.
- Airiness: Not fully airy.
- Next-day texture: Pending.
The tangzhong batch, Recipe 2, is still my best completed batch overall.
Ingredients
- 500 g all-purpose flour
- 320 g water
- 150 g sugar
- 50 g neutral oil
- 6–7 g instant yeast
- 8 g salt
- Fine breadcrumbs, for coating
Baker's percentages
- Flour: 100%
- Water: 64%
- Sugar: 30%
- Oil: 10%
- Salt: 1.6%
- Yeast: 1.2–1.4%
This recipe contains no milk, milk powder, eggs, butter, tangzhong or bread flour.
Method recorded for this test
- Mix. Combine all-purpose flour, sugar, instant yeast and salt. Add water and oil and mix until no dry flour remains.
- Rest. Cover and rest for 15 minutes. At 64% hydration, all-purpose flour dough will initially be quite sticky.
- Develop the dough. Knead or use stretch-and-folds until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Don’t keep adding flour to eliminate stickiness. A tiny amount of neutral oil on the hands is fine.
- First rest/rise. Cover and allow the dough to begin rising.
- Portion. Divide into approximately 30–35 g pieces for smaller panaderia-style pandesal. Shape and coat generously with breadcrumbs.
- Final proof. Cover and proof somewhere warm, such as an off oven with the light on. Because this contains 150 g sugar, don’t use the clock as the deciding factor. Wait until the rolls are very noticeably expanded, light and puffy.
- Bake. Bake at 335°F / 168°C for 20 minutes, covered for the last 4 minutes. This timing worked well for this batch.
What comes next
For the next test, I’m reducing hydration from 64% to 60%, shaping more gently and allowing a longer final proof. More proofing time might help. That’s the next thing to test.
The tangzhong version gets softness from milk, eggs, butter and gelatinized starch. It produced an excellent fresh crumb. This panaderia version gets its character primarily from water, oil, gluten development and a generous proof. The aim is a lighter, simpler Filipino bakery-style crumb that remains tender after cooling.
A fair next-day test
Let several rolls cool completely, then put them in an airtight zip bag. Leaving them loose in the oven or air fryer makes it harder to judge how well the recipe keeps.
The next-day texture of Batch 4 is still unreported. I’ll add that result when I have it.