Panaderia-style pandesal · Baked September 14, 2026
Recipe 4 finally got the flavor right, but the dough was extremely sticky and the rolls weren’t as airy as I wanted. For Recipe 5, I made a smaller batch, reduced hydration from 64% to 60% and gave the dough more time.
I refrigerated it after the first rise, shaped it cold and gave the rolls a better final proof. They were visibly puffier going into the oven and had noticeably more oven spring.
The flavor is still good. The sweetness is still right.
Still too flat, though.
Cutting one open was a better surprise. The crumb was soft, with small and medium irregular air pockets throughout. It wasn’t as dense as the outside suggested. I think structure and height are the next things to work on.
Batch photos
Batch notes
- Flavor: Good.
- Sweetness: Just right.
- Crumb: Soft, with some good irregular air pockets.
- Airiness: Better than it first looked, but still needs improvement.
- Height: Too flat. The rolls spread outward instead of rising enough upward.
- Proofing: Better than Recipe 4.
- Oven spring: Good.
- Handling: Still difficult because of the sticky all-purpose flour dough.
- Bake: 335°F / 168°C.
- Next-day texture: Still soft after a brief toast. Not hard at all!
Ingredients
- 250 g all-purpose flour
- 150 g water
- 75 g sugar
- 25 g neutral oil
- 3–3.5 g instant yeast
- 4 g salt
- Fine breadcrumbs, for coating
Baker’s percentages
| Ingredient | Weight | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| AP flour | 250 g | 100% |
| Water | 150 g | 60% |
| Sugar | 75 g | 30% |
| Neutral oil | 25 g | 10% |
| Instant yeast | 3–3.5 g | 1.2–1.4% |
| Salt | 4 g | 1.6% |
This is still the simple panaderia-style formula: no milk, eggs, butter, tangzhong or bread improver.
What worked
The flavor is staying
The sugar at 30% of the flour weight still tastes right. Flour, water, sugar, oil and salt are giving me the flavor I want. I’m keeping those flavor ratios.
More proofing helped
This batch got considerably more time than Recipe 4. After the first rise, I put the unshaped dough in the refrigerator. When I took it out, it had a strong-looking web of gluten strands and lots of visible fermentation bubbles.
I shaped the dough cold, coated the rolls in breadcrumbs and let them finish proofing before baking. They looked noticeably puffier and expanded again in the oven.
The yeast is clearly doing something. The crumb had more air than I’d expected from those flat rolls.
What still needs work
The rolls need more height
The dough is producing gas, but the rolls keep spreading outward. I want taller, fluffier pandesal, and I think more dough strength may help.
Giving this batch more proofing time helped, but it didn’t completely solve the shape. The air pockets inside make me think structure is the next thing to test.
The dough is still too sticky
Even at 60% hydration, this all-purpose flour dough was difficult to hand-knead and shape. It eventually developed a good-looking gluten network, but getting there was frustrating.
I may also be knocking out gas while fighting the dough into shape. That’s another thing I need to pay attention to.
I need to work on kneading
I’m still not convinced my hand-kneading technique is where it needs to be. For the next batch, I want to develop enough gluten to pass a proper windowpane test. Getting rid of the stickiness can’t be my only measure of progress.
What’s next: Recipe 6
Bread flour.
The sweetness is settled, and this batch had visible fermentation and good oven spring. I want to see whether bread flour gives the rolls more strength to hold their shape.
I’ll use the same 250 g flour batch at 60% hydration and switch only the flour, from all-purpose to bread flour:
- 250 g bread flour
- 150 g water
- 75 g sugar
- 25 g neutral oil
- 3–3.5 g instant yeast
- 4 g salt
- Fine breadcrumbs, for coating
Everything else stays the same. I’m keeping instant yeast and leaving out bread improver and milk powder.
- Batch 4: All-purpose flour at 64% hydration. Extremely sticky.
- Batch 5: All-purpose flour at 60% hydration. Good flavor and crumb, but still too flat.
- Batch 6: Bread flour at 60% hydration. The next experiment.
I’ll also weigh each dough portion before shaping and final proof, keeping the grams per roll the same for more consistent sizes.
Same flavor. Same softness. More height and fluff.
First, I want to see what bread flour can do.