Sourdough Pan de Sal (Filipino Breakfast Rolls)
Pan de Sal might just be the most-loved bread of the Philippines. I had to give mine a sourdough spin and the results? Light, fluffy and flavorful rolls.
I’ve caught the sourdough bug again but you’ve probably already guessed this from my last posts. I never really stopped baking bread but recently my efforts have ramped up to early pandemic proportions. We are up to our ears in focaccia, ciabatta, baguettes, country loaves and rolls but our neighbors aren’t complaining. And for the odds and bits of bread that inevitably collect on the counter, those have been deliciously repurposed into sourdough croutons. Well, they start out as croutons but they’ve taken the place of crackers when hunger strikes in the afternoon.
What is Pan de Sal?
My latest project was an attempt to bridge two interests: sourdough bread and my desire to grow my Filipino food repertoire. Pan de sal (or pandesal) is a Filipino breakfast roll dating back to the country’s colonial period. Pan de sal means “salt bread” and the original was not enriched but the modern roll with its signature bread crumb coating and soft, fluffy crumb leans more sweet than salty. Sugar and fat had become part of the pan de sal evolution but I found that the amount of milk, butter and eggs varied between recipes. Like a French baguette, pan de sal is typically purchased at the corner bakery rather than prepared at home but since this blog turned 13 two months ago I wanted to mark the occasion by creating a sourdough version of a traditional Filipino yeasted bread.
How to Make Sourdough Pan de Sal
When I consulted pan de sal recipes to guide me in creating my own I found that no two were alike. Some recipes used all milk, all water or a mix of both. Some used butter, shortening or even oil. Still others used an egg or two while a handful skipped it altogether. With no standard to follow, I could see that sourdough pan de sal was either going to be a big success or a huge flop. I decided go the fully-enriched route though in reality, most panaderias (bakeries) probably serve a humbler pan de sal, incorporating only some or a smaller portion of the fat components. But I wanted to increase my chances of getting soft, light rolls.
Using sourdough to leaven pan de sal isn’t an unusual idea. The colonial era bread predates commercial yeast so in a way, this is a return to the way it used to be made. The conversion itself is simple. Sourdough bread is more formula than recipe. All ingredients are measured as a percentage of the amount of flour and in most cases the leavening percentage falls at 20% of flour.
Hydration, the amount of liquid, is calculated the same way and I found that for the pan de sal recipes I studied, the hydration range varied greatly. I chose a higher hydration dough–factoring in the contributions of butter and eggs to the hydration percentage–and kept things simple by using round numbers in my formula when possible.
After coming up with my formula the process was no different than my usual sourdough routine. Mix the ingredients, stretch and fold, complete bulk fermentation, overnight cold retard, divide and shape, final proof, bake. You can use a stand mixer to mix the dough and knead it but I enjoy handling dough and the trade-off of longer fermentation time required by sourdough is minimal active time by way of the periodic folds.
Pan de sal can be shaped two ways. Traditionally, the dough is divided, formed into logs, rolled in bread crumbs, cut then baked. The log is flattened slightly by the cutting motion and the pieces are baked cut size up so they are more oval-shaped than round coming out of the oven. I went with a classic dinner roll look by dividing my dough, rolling the pieces into dough balls then covering them in bread crumbs before baking.
The Results
Just like with most breads, part of the appeal of a freshly-baked pan de sal, I think, is the yeasty sweet fragrance coming out of the oven but of course it’s the soft, fluffy roll itself, buttery with just a hint of sweetness that keeps pan de sal fans reaching into the brown paper bag for more. One might ask if it’s worth the extra time to use sourdough to leaven pan de sal and you can guess what I’ll say. Sourdough does impart better flavor to bread but the price is time. Being a home baker with a teen-aged blog to celebrate this was a fun and worthwhile project and now we have a new sourdough bread to love.
Sourdough Pan de Sal (Filipino Breakfast Rolls)
Pan de Sal might just be the most-loved bread of the Philippines. I had to give mine a sourdough spin and the results? Light, fluffy and flavorful rolls.
Ingredients
- 400 grams bread flour (all-purpose is fine too)
- 250 grams milk, lukewarm
- 90 grams active starter
- 9 grams kosher salt
- 1 large egg (roughly 50 grams)
- 50 grams butter, melted and cooled
- 50 grams granulated sugar
- oil for coating bowl (optional)
- 1/2 – 2/3 cup bread crumbs (I used store-bought plain)
Instructions
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Day 1: Mix the dough. In a bowl, add the milk, salt, butter, egg, sugar and starter. Stir until the egg has been incorporated and the starter is no longer a lump. Add the flour and stir until you have a shaggy dough with no dry flour spots. You can lightly oil the sides of your bowl if you like but this is optional. Cover your bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and let sit for thirty minutes.
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Stretch and Fold. Perform four stretch and fold sessions every thirty minutes, by gently pulling one portion of the dough and folding it over itself, giving the dough a quarter turn and folding a portion over itself until you've gone all around. Cover and let sit.
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Bulk Fermentation: After the fourth stretch and fold session let the dough sit until it's grown 50-80% in size. You don't want it to fully ferment (double) because the dough will need to rise for a second time after shaping. Tip: Check your dough temperature periodically. If it's warmer, 78ºF and above, lean towards the lower percentage growth in rise. It took several hours for my dough to rise with an average dough temperature of 76ºF.
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Overnight Cold Retard: At the end of bulk fermentation you can store your dough in the refrigerator overnight.
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Day 2: Divide and Shape. Divide the dough in 18 pieces (to get roughly 50 gram rolls). Take corners of your chunk of dough and pinch together and roll into a ball between the palms of your hands or on the counter. Roll each ball in a bowl of bread crumbs and arrange on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
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Final Proof. Cover the divided and shaped dough with a towel and leave to rise until doubled (or nearly doubled). Again, with a cooler dough temperature, my final proof was roughly two hours. It could be shorter or longer for you depending on your dough temperature.
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Bake: Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Steam helps to improve oven spring so if you have a pan of lava rocks, preheat with the oven and add about one cup of hot water when time to bake. Otherwise, you can just add hot water to a pan when it's time to bake. When your oven's reached temperature, bake your rolls uncovered in the baking sheet you proofed them on. Remove the lava rocks or pan with water after 10 minutes. Continue baking until your pan de sal are lightly golden. Check for doneness at around the 15-20 minute mark because the total bake time will depend on the size of your rolls and also your oven. If one side is browning more quickly than the other, rotate your pan. Enjoy warm with butter or cheese. Leftover rolls can be refrigerated or frozen and warmed in the oven to refresh.
The sourdough pan de sal from Lemons and Anchovies is a mouthwatering recipe that brings the authentic flavors of Filipino breakfast rolls to your home, with its soft and pillowy texture, subtle tang from the sourdough starter, and irresistible aroma when freshly baked. These rolls are a delightful way to start your day and a must-try for anyone seeking a taste of Filipino culinary tradition.
On day 1, you mention adding water to the bowl but the amount is not included in the ingredients list. Should it be written “add the water or milk”, or is there additional water needed?
Hi, Norma. The water was a typo–sorry about this. I use all milk for this recipe (but yes, you can use a combination of both). I’ve corrected my error and I hope your pan de sal worked out. Thanks for letting me know.