Spanish Bread

Spanish Bread is a Filipino bread with sweet filling, found in local bakeries, and is one of the common bread eaten as merienda or teatime snack. This popular bread, made with bread flour, milk, yeast, all purpose flour and with a sweet filling made by breadcrumbs, sugar, salt, butter and evaporated milk. This is one of the most common bread that can be found along with Pandesal, Pan de Coco, and Kabayan together with many more rows of bread typically seen in the bakeery windows.

What is this Filipino hybrid bread?

Typically Spanish bread is made with a dough similarly used for Filipino breads, a mixture of flour and bread flour to create a soft and fluffy mixture, yeast to rise, and an addition of milk, sugar, salt, egg and melted butter to give it that nice yellow hue, kneaded and dusted with flour repeatedly till you get a nice smooth dough, risen then filled with a buttery balanced sweet filling made of brown sugar, salt, butter and milk, thickened with flour or breadcrumbs. This is then spread over the flattened dough, rolled into a crescent shape and dipped into breadcrumbs. Baked to a wonderfully golden hue, and just adds an instant aromatic fragrance to your home. Enjoy this fresh out of the oven!

A Short History on Spanish Bread

Bread for merienda are not uncommon in the Philippines, panaderias are flocked by many early in the morning and in the afternoon, from students, kids, and workers, no one can dispute that eating bread snacks or ‘tinapay’ has been ingrained in our daily lives. It’s a filling carb with deep roots. Wheat flour was then sourced from China, using tuba wine for sour dough, with new ingredients added when the Americans colonized and brought in baking powder, yeast, and new recipes. These experiences and new materials with Filipino ingenuity created rows and rows of breads to fit the Filipino palette. Some even with funny history and names like Pan de Regla, and monay.

Children and adults alike have fond memories of this bread, though there has been a long history of childhood memories associated with this, there has not been much history on how it begun. Most state that the bread came about in the Spanish colonization in around 1631 when first panaderia was built. As bread was an integral part of the Spaniards’ meal, akin to how rice is to Filipinos, bread were eaten for all 3 meals of the day. These were then called ‘pan basico’ or basic bread, which was what we know the sweet bread as without the filling, shaped like a baguette and are served, sliced.

But Spanish bread did not come from Spaniards, Filipinos created them. There had been theories that similar to the ensaymada, a bread associated to Spanish pasties, both breads may have similar ingredients but the method of creating it and how it’s formed are very different. Spanish Bread and Ensaymada made in the Philippines are rolled to give it its well-known spiral shape whereas the Spanish baked goods are stout and similar to a bun. As years go by, the Spanish bread became more popular not only because of its sweet and fluffy bread, but also because it’s a bread with a ready made buttery filling that can be enjoyed without the need of adding more ‘palaman’.

Try this sweet buttery addicting bread out!

Spanish Bread Recipe (tagalog)

Mga Sangkap

Masa

• 2 kutsaritang lebadura
• 1 tasa gatas o evaporada
• 3 tasa bread flour (sobra pang masa)
• 1 tasa harina
• 1/3 tasa at 1 kutsarang puting asukal
• 1 kutsarang asin
• ½ tasa tunaw na mantikilyang walang asin
• 1 malaking itlog
• ½ tasa breadcrumbs

Palaman

• 1 at ½ tasa breadcrumbs
• 1 tasa kayumangging asukal
• ¼ kutsaritang asin
• 2/3 tasa mantikilyang walang asin
• ¼ tasa gatas o evaporada

Paano Lutuin

1. Para sa masa, haluin ang lebadura, 1 kutsarang asukal, at gatas. Itabi ng 10 minuto.
2. Sa ibang mangkok haluin ang bread flour, harina, 1/3 puting asukal, at asin. Idagdag ang hinalong lebadura, tinunaw na mantikilya, at itlog. Haluin hangang di na ito gaanong kabasa.
3. Sa makinis na ibabaw, masahin ang masa, wisikin ng harina at imasahe hanggang magmukang makinis ang masa o bumalik sa porma ito kapag sinundot ito. Ilugar ito sa mangkok na nagrasa ng mantika, takpan ng 1 oras o hangang dumoble.
4. Habang pinapaalsa ito, handain ang palaman; haluin ang breadcrumbs, asukal, asin, mantikilyang walang asin at gatas. Itabi.
5. Pagdumoble na ang laki, pahinhin na ipisa ito at hatiin ng 20 o 22 na piraso, o 50 – 55 gramo bola ng masa. Irolyo ng pahaba o hanggang magmukang oblong, ikalat ng 1 – 2 kutsarang palaman at irolyo ang masa hanggang sa dulo. Ipahid o isawsaw ito ng breadcrubs, Ilugar sa baking trey at takpan ng 1 oras.
6. Lutuin ito sa oben na ininit ng 180°C o 350°F ng 15 o 18 na minute o hangang mag kayumanggi ang kulay nito. Ipahinga ito sa trey ng ilang minuto bago ilagat sa rack para palamigin pa ulit.
7. Ihanda kasama ng malamig o mainit na inumin.