Siopao
Siopao is the Filipino version of the Chinese steamed bun “Baozi”, possibly the “Cha Siu Bao” variant which is a Baozi with pork Barbecue Filling. There is mainly two variants of Siopao which is named after their fillings – The Asado, and the Bola-Bola. Siopao Asado is filled with Pork Asado, a savory Pork dish similar to Adobo. Siopao Bola-Bola is filled with a big meatball made from gound pork and salted duck eggs. You can differentiate the two by the color of the dot in the bun. A Red dot is Asado, yellow dot is Bola-Bola. A siopao without a filling is called Mantao.

Hopia
Hopia is the Filipino version of the Chinese Mooncakes. It is a light flaky pastry usually filled with mung bean paste. Other variants of hopia have red mung bean paste (Red Monggo Hopia), Ube jam (Hopia Ube), Pineapple (Hopia Pinya), or Pork filling (Hopiang Baboy).

Ensaymada
A common Merienda favorite is the Ensaymada. It is a bread which is similar to a Danish, and is topped with margarine, grated cheese, and salted egg. Local neighborhood bakeries also have a version where the bread is lighter, and the topping consists of just margarine and sprinkled sugar.

Pan de Coco
An undeniably Filipino bread creation is the Pan de Coco. It is a soft light bread with a shredded toasted coconut and molasses filling.

Broas
Can be loosely defined as crunchy Lady Fingers.

Biskotso
A biscuit similar to the Italian Biscotti.

Barquillos
Sticks of crunchy wafer rolls.

Turones
Turones is essentially thinner Barquillos with powdered milk inside. Other variants include “Turones de Mani” where finely ground peanuts are added to the powdered milk.

Otap
A very crunchy and flaky oval biscuit made of flour, sugar, shortening and coconut. It looks like flat Broas sprinkled with sugar.

Piyaya/Piaya
A thin flat biscuit similar to Hopia. It is even referred to as Flat Hopia by some. The usual filling is made out of sticky molasses.

Rosquillo
The infamous Rosquillo which is often said to be the origin of the “Filipinos” brand of chocolate biscuit snacks in Spain and Portugal . It is a thin ring shaped biscuit usually sprinkled with sugar.

Pacencia
Pacencia is the Spanish connotation to the Tagalog word “Pasensya” which means “Patience”. It is a light and crisp round cookie.

Camachile
Cookies which are very similar to the Pacencia but is shaped like the Camachile Fruit, which kind of looks like Tamarind fruits.

Lengua de Gato
Lengua de Gato means "Cat's tongue" in Spanish, which is what this very delectable biscuit looks like. It is a thin biscuit which is very buttery in taste.

Puto Seko/Puto Seco
A cookie which has a hard but brittle exterior but the inside is soft and powdery.

Galletas
A kind of powdery Egg crackers. Galletas de Patatas meanwhile, is square with upturned corners.

Araro
A powdery cookie similar the Puto Seko but instead of regular flour, Arrowroot flour is used.

Buding
General Term for Bread Pudding.

Pan de Sal
Definitely the King of all breads when it comes to the Filipino cuisine. Although Spanish in name, (Pan de Sal literally translates to "Salt Bread") it definitely conquers the bread scene in the Philippines. As far as I know, there is no bakery in the entire Philippines that doesn’t sell this bread. Most of the bakeries though only sell it from 5am to 8am. Pan de Sal is a simple small round bread made from basic yeast-raised dough characterized by the bread crumbs topping it. Despite the name, Pan de Sal is not actually salty, and most Pan de Sal variants sold in local bakeries are actually sweet tasting. The first Pan de Sals actually tastes more like small French Baguettes, which are very crusty, but softer versions of Pan de Sal are now popular. Some Filipinos who are used to the taste of the crusty Pan de Sal now prefer the softer version. This is an unsightly occurrence since what most Filipinos don’t know is that the softer Pan de Sal uses a cheaper kind of wheat flour, which explains why they are soft. If you really want to taste the unique and original Filipino Pan de Sal, look for the crustier ones.

Pan de Leche
Pan de Leche literally means “Milk Bread”. As with the Pan de Sal, the name is a little misleading. Pan de Leche actually tastes a bit sweet, not milky. It’s commonly sold as small bread buns, but there are also bigger buns which are sold pre-sliced, like the classic American Pullman Bread.

Monay
A bread bun similar to Pan de Leche but the the dough used is heavier and tastes a bit more creamier. It also usually has the characteristic crease on top to differentiate it from the Pan de Leche.

Tasty
The Tasty is the general term Filipinos use for the American Pullman Loaf sliced bread. It got the name Tasty because most local neighborhood bakeries often wrap the loaf breads in a plastic package which is labeled “Tasty Bread”.


Putok
Putok literelly means “explosion”. These small round bread buns is thick and chewy. It is characterized by the crack on top-center of the bun where the steam popped out of the dough, hence the name. The crack on the bread is then sprinkled with sugar or glazed. A variant of the putok is the Star Bread, where the top-center of the dough is cut so that when it is baked, it will expand and form the star shape. A funny story about Putok is that since “Putok” is also a popular slang that refers to “Smelly underarms”, some people tease the attendants in a bakery (who are usually women) with the phrase “May putok ba kayo?” which have an ambiguous meaning of either “Do you have Putok bread?” or “Do you have smelly underarms?”.

Machacao
Machacao is the sliced and toasted leftover breads. It is similar to Crouttons, but is usually more toasted, almost burnt. Machacao is actually created from leftover breads so that it will be grounded and then used as an ingredient for making Pan de Sal.

Pilipit
Pilipit is the Tagalog word for “Twisted”. It is a fried bread which looks like twisted ropes sprinkled with sugar.

Mongo Bread
Mongo (Mung beans) Bread is the Filipinos variant of the American Loaf. Cooked mung bean paste is added to the dough prior to baking.

Pan de Sosya
Cluster of Pan de Leche buns with sugar-margarine glaze on top.

Kababayan/Kabayan
Kababayan means “Fellow Countryman”. This is a rich and creamy muffin which is usually shaped like Mexican Sombreros.

Pan de Regla
Pan de Regla is a bread stuffed with sweet red bread pudding. The name of the bread shows you the rather imaginative and oftentimes playful nature of the Filipino people. Regla is the Tagalog word for “Menstrual Blood” or “Menstruation”. So Pan de Regla literally means “Menstrual Blood Bread”.

Pianono
Pianono is a roll of soft chiffon lightly spread with butter, margarine, or cream. Basically, it looks like a Jelly Roll. The exterior of the Pianono is usually coated with sugar.

Inipit
Inipit refers to small rectangular cakes which are made by sandwiching a filling with two thin flat chiffon cakes and topped with thin spread of butter and sprinkled with sugar. The filling is usually a creamy custard or sweet milky filling. It was named Inipit since "Inipit" literally means “to sandwich” which refers to the two chiffon cakes “sandwiching” the filling.

Crema de Fruta
A creamy sponge cake topped with a various fruits then a sweet soft gelatin glaze is poured on top so that the cake will stick to the Fruits.

Canonigo
A baked Fluffy Meringue served with a sweet caramel syrup.

Pastel
Creamy cupcakes with a sweet filling in the center. Soft Custard is the most common filling of choice, specially in the Ilocos Region. In the province of Camiguin, creamy Ube Jam, Langka Preserves, or Yema filling is also used in their Pastel.

Mamon
A kind of soft chiffon cupcakes.

Egg Pie
A simple pie with chewy pastry filled with egg and condensed milk filling.

Buko Pie
The province of Laguna’s pride, Buko Pie contains a filling made out of milk, sugar, and shredded young coconut meat. Some foreigners think that since "Buko" is the Tagalog word for Coconut, they mistakenly think that Buko Pie is similar to Coconut Cream Pie.

Empanada
Empanada is a light pastry filled with various kinds of savory meat fillings. It is often deep fried or baked. The deep fried variant is more a bit crusty while the baked variant is distinguished by its flaky pastry.

Binuwelos
Binuwelos generally refers to any of the fried bread varieties usually found in the Tagalog and Visayas region. Binuwelos may sound recognizable to those who are familiar to Mexican Cuisine, and yes, Binuwelos is essentially the same to the Mexican Buñuelos. However, Mexican Buñuelos seem to be more like a Fried Cake, since the dough mostly resembles cake dough, while the Filipino Binuwelos is more like Fried Bread.

Pineapple Pie
A pie with sweet and tangy pineapple pudding filling.

Spanish Bread
A short roll of bread which is filled with a margarine based filling. The dough is covered in bread crust prior to baking, similar to the way Pan de Sal is made.

As I have often said in the past posts, Rice dominates the Filipino Meal. As with Noodle Dishes, Breads and Pastries are just not enough to suffice a Filipino’s appetite, and most of the time, they are just eaten as Merienda’s or during breakfast time.

It was the Spanish who first introduced the concept of bread and pastries to the Philippines. In fact, most of the popular breads in the Philippines still have names which are Spanish in nature, like Pan de Sal and Pan de Leche. Early Filipinos preferred cooking with rice flour, since the Wheat is not an indigenous crop in the Philippine Islands. The Chinese people’s influence is also evident on Filipino Breadmaking, as evident in the Hopia and Siopao. The Americans also taught their baking skills to the Filipinos, which gave rise to the Tasty (Filipino’s general term for American Sliced Bread) and the Filipino Cakes.

As we are in the Topic of Breads and Pastries and Filipinos, did you know that Food Industry giant Kraft produces cookie snacks labeled “Filipinos”? If you are in Spain or Portugal, you might be familiar with it, since they are mainly produced and sold in those two countries. The “Filipinos” brand of biscuit snacks are ring-shaped biscuits coated with chocolate. There is also the “Filipinos Agujeros” variant, which are chocolate coated biscuit balls, and the “Filipinos Bigsticks” – pretzel sticks with puffed rice which are covered in chocolate. It has made a fuss in the International scene since as you might know by now, the term “Filipino” refers to Philippine Citizens. Most Filipinos (Philippine citizens, not the Biscuit) are irked and offended by this. In 1999, Philippine President Joseph Estrada filed a petition to the Spanish Government to stop the production of the “Filipinos” brand biscuit and force Kraft Foods to change the name but to no avail. The “Filipinos” brand are still produced in Spain and Portugal today. In fact, if you ever type in your browser “www.filipinos.com”, you would be taken to the official site of the biscuit snack, and has nothing to do with the Philippines nor the Philippine Citizens. Personally, I think it is wrong since the term “Filipinos” has been used since the Spanish Occupation of the Philippines 400 years ago to refer to the “Citizens of the Philippines”. Some say that it may have been named “Filipinos” because the snack may have been based on a similarly ring-shaped biscuit of the Iloilo Province – the Rosquillos.