Grace Abounds The other night, the kids and I made our very own pan de sal (bread rolls) and told them that we will call it Pan de Valencia. The little ones giggled and proudly told their Dad as they took a bite of our homemade bread. I said We because they took part in the preparations. Our big kid helped with the mixing and kneading of the dough, while our toddler dusted her hands with flour and pat the dough pretending to knead it. I did the rest on my own (while big kid took the pictures) because we all wanted the bread to be ready for our midnight snack.
Our Pan de Valencia is a bit different from the usual pan de sal. I love eating this Filipino breakfast staple but I dislike the breadcrumbs that came with it. So, when I made our own bread, I skipped the crumbs. Armed with our willingness to wait for the rising of the dough and our craving for fresh, hot, homemade pan de sal, we pushed through with our late night baking.
Here’s what the dough looked like after kneading it on our wooden dining table for 10 minutes. This dough was made from all purpose flour, instant dry yeast, sugar, salt, margarine, and milk. After mixing all these ingredients, I did not knead it right away because it was still warm as the recipe that I followed called for warming the liquids. I let the mixture cool a bit before working on it. I was able to avoid the mistake that I did when I made our own wanton wrappers. The warm dough kept on sticking onto my fingers no matter how much flour I put on my hands.
This was the full dough’s size before the first rising. I really asked my son to take a picture of it just so we can be sure that its size has increased. The recipe Saif that depending on the warmth of the area to which it was placed, the dough could rise in as quick as 30 minutes.
I set a timer and checked after half an hour. It barely change its size so pre-heat the oven below the bowl of dough and waited for 30 more minutes. I was satisfied when I removed the towel on top of the bowl.
I then sliced into two with our kitchen knife since we don’t have a dough slicer, and rolled each into a log before slicing diagonally into smaller pieces.
I then rolled each diagonal and elongated it to how a pan de sal looks like. I placed the rolls at least half an inch apart from each other on a baking pan and put them inside the still warm oven to let it rise for 15 minutes. Take note that the oven was not turned on at this point as we weren’t baking the rolls yet. We’re just taking advantage of the warmth of the oven to make the rolls rise some more at a shortest possible time. They looked like these after rising.
After rising, we finally baked the rolls for 15 minutes at 370°F. Our house was filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread!
Here’s our first batch of Pan de Valencia 🙂
Fluffy on the inside!
My kids loved eating our homemade pan de sal with our favorite cookie and chocolate spreads but they also like munching these on its own.
If you’d like to try making your own pan de sal, visit this website. I have researched for the easiest recipe and by far, the one on that website is the most newbie-friendly.
As of this writing, we have already finished every piece of pan de sal that we made. That’s how good it is 😉