Friday, March 13, 2009

Camote (Sweet Potato) Pandesal and Pandelimon

Several days ago, I got an email from sassysweets inviting me to join a contest to come up with recipes using sweet potatoes, for anything easy and quick enough to be a part of everyday family meal. The contest is hosted by NC Sweet Potatoes and there is unlimited number of entries. I don't know exactly how I got invited, but I welcome the opportunity to explore cooking and baking with potatoes. You can read more about the contest in the sweetbytes blog. This post will be the first in my camote series. You will see more in the following days on camote, but I will also post about other things in between.

Because of this contest, I thought I would experiment more on the use of sweet potatoes. While we Filipinos are used to incorporating sweet potatoes (camote) in our dishes, we never really explored its potential in baking until recently, in an attempt to lessen the use of wheat in flour and beat the high price of yeast breads/rolls.

I first made pandesal and pandelimon, two of the mostly consumed yeast rolls in the Philippines. Although I have posted in the past about pandesal using just regular flour, I will feature it here with the use of sweet potato. Pandesal is a Filipino breakfast staple, eaten plain or with fillings such as jams, cheese, butter/margarine, peanut butter, or even meats (corned beef and liver spread being the most popular), along with a cup of coffee or a mug of milk. I already have a post here on my favorite pandesal recipes using the bread machine. Now I have made the dough using sweet camote, still with the use of the bread machine, to come up with super soft pandesal and pandelimon. Bread machine has been a friend of mine as it helps making yeast rolls a breeze even for a working mother like me. Pandelimon, when made larger, is excellent for burger buns, but I love eating the small one plainly served during dinner. It can rival, if it's not better than, the rolls served in one of the major family restaurants here in our town. The only difference in the two is the bread crumbs used to coat pandesal, and their shape. I love the pleasant yellowish color the sweet potato imparts, as this creates the impression that extra egg yolks were added.

Even if I end up not winning the first prize for the said contest, I will be just as happy to be able to come up with recipes here using camote/sweet potatoes that Philippine-based readers of my blog could make use of as a resource for a potential business in that country. Camote is very cheap in the Philippines compared to flour, and the soft yellowish rolls they create will probably boost up sales and profit.

Ingredients:

1 / 2 cup milk
1 / 4 cup water
1 / 2 cup boiled and mashed sweet potato
1 / 4 cup butter or margarine
1 large egg
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups bread flour + 2-3 tbsp while kneading
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp Fleischmann's bread machine yeast

Instructions:



Mix the milk, water and mashed sweet potatoes and heat in the microwave for around 1-1/2 minutes. Add the butter and egg, beat to mix then check temperature. It should be between 70-80 deg F (room temp). Pour into the bread machine pan. Add the dry ingredients. Set at dough cycle. after about 10 minutes, start adding flour gradually so that the dough is not too sticky (try to poke from time to time with fingers). It should appear relatively smooth and moist, not wet or flaky. The kneading ends on the 30th minute, then it rises for 1 hr.

Transfer the dough on a lightly floured surface (it will shrink). Make a log out of the dough, cut some to form into smooth balls (sprinkle with some flour again as you get a new ball. Shaping this takes practice. The surface should not be too floury or you won't shape effectively, but must not have too little flour so that it becomes sticky and the surface of ball appears very rough). Arrange balls on greased baking sheet as shown in the slide. Cover with damp flour sack in a draft-free place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. For the remaining log of dough, cut at intervals of 1 to 1-1/2 inch for pandesal. Roll in bread crumbs and arrange on greased baking pan. Let rise for 30 minutes. I like placing them inside the oven, then turn on the oven for a minute and turned off to create that warm draft-free environment.

Bake at 375oF for 12-15 minutes or until done, first the pandesal followed by the pandelimon. Remove from pan and serve hot; cool on wire rack completely then place in ziploc after about 30 minutes those you will not consume right away. To enjoy hot the next days, use oven toaster and bake at 350 deg F for 3 minutes.

My next post will be on the sinfully delicious almond sans rival, which I will also post as a series, interspersed with camote series.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great, Manang. Finally, I was able to see this recipe. Thanks for sharing. I don't have a bread machine so I will make it the traditional way, by kneading manually, and will use rapid rise yeast instead of active dry. I've been using active dry yeast, it's about time I tried with the rapid rise yeast.
You're great!

Anonymous said...

hi manang,ask ko lang,wala akong BM,so if i make pandesal pareho pa rin ba ang kneading and rising time?

Anonymous said...

hi,great to read your article about sweet potato, do you think its safe to say that we can replace wheat flour and use sweet potato instead esp in baking pandesal?
more economical?

Anonymous said...

i tried to make pandesal but it turned out so hard ...but the taste is good..how to make it soft tnk you po

Anonymous said...

hi manang! i just have a few questions about pandesal because i tried to make the regular one and when it's not hot my pandesal was not soft anymore..are all regular pandesal like that? or can u suggest what should i do in order for my pandesal to stay soft all the time? thank you and i love your site in fairnesssss...God bless

Manang said...

Hi Anonymous,
Regular pandesal is at its softest right out of the oven. Medyo mas firm pag lumamig na, pero dapat nakaplastic (as I advised in my post) para di mag dry up. You can make it malambot like bagong luto pag ininit mo sa oven toaster mga 3 minutes at 350 deg F, or more kugn medyo toasted gusto mo (pwede mo ring lagyan ng sliced cheese bago mo i-toast). After that first reheating, the next reheating will not be as good dahil nakaka-dry din yung oven.
Pag me sweet potatoes, mas malambot kahit di initin.
Try mo yung recipe ng pandelimon or eto mismong camote pandesal kung gusto mo talaga malambot na malambot (baka lang di maging crunchy yung labas), gawin mo lang hugis pandesal.

josbookshelf said...

Thank you so much for this recipe. I'm a very novice baker (just discovered my new interest a month ago) and the success of this pan de sal recipe just made my day! The pan de sal is just the way my friends like it --- very soft! They think I'm a prodigy! Ha, ha! :D

Manang said...

Hi jo,
Thanks for your feedback!
Maybe next time you can impress them with supersoft or buttery ensaymada..hehe..

Anonymous said...

hi manang! i made pan de sal last night and let it rise overnight. i put it in a room temperature storage and covered it with plastic wrap. the next day my pan de sal gotten bigger but they were flat and wide. when i baked it they were salty. i checked my yeast and they are still good. so i am making another batch. what do you think it is manang???

Manang said...

Hi Anonymous,
They should not be left to rise overnight especially in room temp...that is too long. The dough will over-rise since the yeast will over-multiply (the only limiting factor is the sugar content since yeast feeds on sugar) and will create lots of gas. It would have been better if you immediately placed the un-risen dough in fridge after covering with plastic. I am not sure why it turned salty, as they usually turn sour when over-risen.

Anonymous said...

Hey Can you give me some characteristics of this, cause I'm making my thesis and I found it great. Can you help me with this,
Paki lang po

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