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.