How to Make Bakery Worthy Ube Pandesal
This recipe for bakery worthy Ube Pandesal is a great way to use up your leftover ube halaya jam and get a delicious, soft, and pretty breakfast or snack. These ube pandesal are pillowy soft and moist for days afterwards.
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My memories of pandesal are etched in my deepest childhood memories of the Philippines. A few days a week, my Tita Iti and I walked past colorfully painted houses to a miniscule window, where a lady sold pandesal from her home. The smell of heavenly freshly baked bread alone made me drool. I was allowed to hold the bag of piping hot from the oven buns, and delighted with this responsibility, practically skipped home in my tsinelas or slippers.
What is Pandesal?
Spaniard colonizers introduced pandesal or pan de sal “bread of salt” to the Filipinos. The bread was modeled after French baguettes, but the use of local Filipino flour caused the bread to be a softer texture. Also, even though the name translates to salt bread, the modern recipes for pandesal make a slightly sweet bread.
Ube Jam in Pandesal
I like using homemade ube jam in pandesal. It gives the bread a pretty pastel purple color, even after baking. And, because of the moisture content in the jam, it helps the dough become sticky and bake into soft, moist bread buns afterward. Also, it’s a good way to use up my leftovers!
How to eat Ube Pandesal
Filipinos have a saying “Walang matigas na Pandesal sa mainit na kape,” which translates to “No pandesal without hot coffee”
For me, this is totally true. Hot pandesal with coffee with a splash of cashew or almond milk? Yes!!! However, hot Milo and Ovaltine also hold a special place in my heart. As for the inside? I love spreading either peanut butter (the Philippines has a sweet kind that I can’t seem to find in the states), ube jam, coconut jam, cheese spread, or just plain butter and jam. Sweetened condensed milk would be good too. I like to toast my ube jam pandesal for five minutes to make sure the outside crisps up and the inside is hot again.
Tips to make bakery worthy ube pandesal
Follow these tips to help you make your bakery worthy ube pandesal:
- Get your ube jam and eggs to room temperature. Room temperature is better than cold because your ingredients will incorporate better and easier into the rest of the other ingredients. Our recipe for ube jam can be found here.
- Measure out the flour by scooping the flour into the measuring cup and then leveling out with a butter knife. This ensures you don’t put too much flour, and you will get nice and airy buns.
- The dough is sticky, but keep kneading it. As it gains more gluten, it will be less sticky and hold to itself more as a result. Resist the temptation to add flour because more flour will make the bread tougher and not airy. Instead, oil your hands well with a neutral oil like vegetable oil. Also put a sufficient amount of oil on your kneading surface.
- I used a dough scraper to help me move the sticky dough around when making the dough into balls. I made sure to also put oil on my dough scraper as well.
- Do the windowpane test to make sure the dough developed enough gluten. Take a golfball size ball and pinch it with your thumbs, forefingers, and middle fingers. Your fingers should form a window shape. If the dough can stretch wide into a thin, translucent membrane, it has enough gluten. Place the dough back into your batch.
- If the dough has not developed enough gluten, it will tear easily during the windowpane test. Keep kneading it until it does pass.
- Pandesal is a great way to use those end pieces of bread that no one wants to eat! Just save them until they’re stale, or lightly toast them. Process them into fine textured breadcrumbs with a food processor.
- This recipe uses a stand mixer to make the dough, but you can also do by hand.
Other fun recipes to try:
Easy Mini Biscoff Ube Cheesecakes
Double Chocolate Ube Cheesecake Swirled Brownies
Better Than Bakery Ube Pandesal
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Bakery Worthy Ube Pandesal
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup ube halaya jam (room temperature)
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup warm milk (100-110F)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (plus more for greasing)
- 1 large egg (room temperature)
- 1-2 drops ube extract
- 8 tablespoons breadcrumbs (fine texture crumbs)
Instructions
- Get egg and ube jam out of fridge for 30 minutes to get to room temperature.
- In the meantime, prepare breadcrumbs by finely grinding stale bread in food processor. Crumbs should be texture of coarse sand.
- In a stand mixer bowl, mix flour, sugar, and salt together.
- Pour warm milk, oil, and egg. Mix gently on low, or with large spoon or spatula. Add yeast and mix gently.
- Add ube jam and 1-2 drops of ube extract, then mix on medium with dough hook. Once dough starts coming together into a ball, set mixer to high. Check after 10 minutes if dough passes windowpane test. Continue mixing until dough passes windowpane test. This may take about 20 minutes.
- Form the dough into a ball. Grease large bowl with oil and place dough back inside. Lightly coat the top and sides of the dough with oil as well, then cover with damp kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Leave it to rise in a warm spot for an hour.
- Punch the dough down and divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into smooth balls.
- Roll each piece into the breadcrumbs, making sure all sides are covered.
- Place the breadcrumb covered balls on a baking sheet and leave at least 1 1/2 inch in between. Alternately, you can place them with 1/2 inch space in between if you want your bread to tear away. Cover them and let rise for 30 minutes. Set your oven to pre-heat at 350F.
- Bake pandesal for 20 minutes at 350F or until slightly browned. Remove and serve while fresh and hot from the oven!
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