Pandesal (, lit. "salt bread") is a staple bread roll in the Philippines commonly eaten for breakfast. It is made of flour, yeast, sugar, oil, and salt. Description Pandesal is a popular yeast-raised bread in the Philippines. Individual loaves are shaped by rolling the dough into long logs (bastón, Spanish for "stick") which are rolled in fine bread crumbs. These are then portioned, allowed to rise, and baked. It is most commonly served hot and may be eaten as is, or dipped in coffee, tsokolate (hot chocolate), or milk. It can also be complemented with butter, margarine, cheese, jam, peanut butter, chocolate spread, or other fillings like eggs, sardines and meat. Its taste and texture closely resemble those of the Puerto Rican pan de agua, French baguette, and Mexican bolillos. Contrary to its name, pandesal tastes slightly sweet rather than salty. Most bakeries produce pandesal in the morning for breakfast consumption, though some bake pandesal the whole day. Variants Some pandesal in supermarkets and some bakeries are less crusty and lighter in color. These also tend to have more sugar than the traditional pandesal, which only has 1.75% sugar. On Siargao Island, famous as a surfing spot, an oval-shaped version is locally known as "pan de surf" as it resembles a surfboard. It is baked on makeshift ovens fueled with coconut husks, and usually sold alongside pan de coco. Dried and ground-up malunggay or moringa leaves are sometimes mixed into the flour for added nutritional content; this is called "malunggay pandesal" or "malunggay bread". A popular new variant of pandesal is ube cheese pandesal, which has a purple yam (ube) and cheese filling. It is characteristically purple like all ube-based dishes. Other contemporary variants include chocolate, matcha, strawberry and blueberry flavors. A soft, yellowish type of Filipino bread roll that is similar to pandesal except that uses eggs, milk, and butter or margarine is known as Señorita bread, Spanish bread, or pan de kastila. Unlike the pandesal, it commonly has sweet fillings. It is unrelated to the Spanish pan de horno (also known in English as "Spanish bread"). History The precursor of the pandesal was pan de suelo ("floor bread"), a local Spanish-Filipino version of the French baguette baked directly on the floor of a wood-fired oven called a pugón. It was made with wheat flour and was harder and crustier than the pandesal. Since wheat is not natively produced