Crusty Golden Brown Pan De Sal (Bread Rolls)

Pan De Sal can be considered a staple food of Philippine breakfast meals. Sometimes, even during merienda. Whether you eat it with Adobo, Ham and Cheese in the middle, or just plain butter melted on top, every Filipino is accustomed to eating it. 

Yesterday, I had a craving for these rolls. Since nobody really sells it at this part of the world, I decided to search online and bake my own version.

Ingredients

10 cups All-Purpose Flour

11 tbsp Sugar (to mix with the flour and sugar)

1 tbsp Sugar (for the yeast mixture)

1 tsp Kosher Salt (rock salt)

85 grams Melted Butter

1 tbsp Oil

1/2 cup buttermilk (whole milk, if buttermilk is unavailable)

1 Pack of Yeast

1 Cup Warm Water

2 Medium-Sized Eggs

Bread Crumbs

Directions

1. In a separate bowl, dissolve 1 pack of yeast and 1 tbsp. sugar in 1 cup warm water. Wait until the yeast mixture starts to bubble.
2. In your kitchen mixer (I used our KitchenAid) bowl, mix flour, sugar, and kosher salt. Use the dough hook, set to minimum for about 3 minutes.
3. By now, the yeast mixture should have started to bubble. Mix in the eggs, milk, and butter.
4. Pour the yeast mixture into the kitchen mixer bowl where the flour, sugar, and kosher salt are. Set the speed to the lowest and/or second to the lowest speed to make the dough and leave for about 10-15 minutes.
5. Once the dough has mixed together and come off the sides of the kitchen mixing bowl, you can take it out and knead with your hands on a clean counter top for about 5 minutes.
6. Spray or brush the kitchen mixer bowl with oil or melted butter and put the dough back in.
7. Leave for an hour to let it rise.
8. After the dough has risen, take a chunk out (about 1/4 of it all). Dust a clean counter top with flour, put the dough there, and pour about 1 tsp of milk onto it. Start kneading. It will start to become sticky, but keep kneading. Dust with more flour, and knead the dough some more.
9. Roll into a log about 2-2.5 inches in diameter. Cut the log at about 1 inch thick each. Each log can make about 8-9 rolls depending on your cutting preferences.
10. Roll each cut piece onto some bread crumbs.
11. Place them on a baking sheet about 1-2 inches apart. 
12. Let it rise for another half hour.
13. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.
14. Bake for 18-22 minutes, see notes below.
15. Let them cool and serve.

*This recipe produces three dozen Crusty Golden Brown Filipino Bread Rolls (Pan De Sal).

Notes

1. The recipe for the dough tends to get dry, and I think the best way to go about Pan De Sal rolls is to have a bit of a sticky and elastic texture before cutting them into rolls and placing them onto a baking pan. This is why I added milk on the last minute.
2. The minutes for baking these rolls depend on how big you cut the dough. If your slices are bigger than or equal to 2.5 inches in height and in width, 20-22 minutes would be perfect. If the slices are smaller, then having it at 18-20 minutes would be better. This setting makes sure that the Pan De Sal rolls are crusty on the outside (as well as brown to golden brown in color), and soft on the inside.
3. Light milk can be used instead of buttermilk or whole milk.
4. The original recipe is found at the website of Bebeh's Cusina.