Pan de Regla

You don’t want to know the real translation of this bread; it won’t sound appetizing at all. Pan de Regla or Kalihim is a popular Filipino bakery item which is basically a bread roll filled with red pudding in the middle.

I grew up with this bread, I remember this is what my mom used to serve during merienda to our house builders / carpenters during the time they were renovating our house when I was growing up. I was tasked to buy them regularly in the bakery near our place, it was one of the standard merienda for us along with other options such as pan de coco, Spanish bread and ensaymada, and we always opted for this and not pandesal becuase they are the type of breads that does not require a palaman (“filling”) as they already come with sweet flavour.

Pan de Regla if directly translated means “menstrual bread”, and you know why it is called like such. If you can’t imagine that then think of it as a used feminine pad, now your grossed out. It is also called many other names but one of the most popular ones is kalihim, meaning secret, and it is nowhere related anywhere near that female period, instead it is named like such becuase the bakers want to make the filling a secret as they are made from previous day’s unsold bread. Yes, it is a bread filled with a bread, and you won’t even notice that, it’s just simply delicious.

I had planned on making this for quite some time now but we rarely had stale bread at home to make my pudding, up until now when we forgotten that we bought one loaf and placed it on the fridge.

Pan de Regla

★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews

• Author: Raymund
• Prep Time: 45 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 1 hour
• Yield: 36 1x
• Category: Snacks
• Cuisine: Filipino

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

---

Description

Pan de Regla or Kalihim is a popular Filipino bakery item which is basically a bread roll filled with red pudding in the middle.

---

Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

Dough

• 2 1/2 cups high grade flour
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast
• 1/4 cup lukewarm water
• 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Pudding

• 10–12 slices medium thickness sliced bread (white, wholegrain, multi grain or mix), roughly torn
• 2 1/4 cups full cream milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tbsp red food colouring (adjust to achieve a very bright red colour)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Egg Wash

• 1 egg, beaten

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

---

Instructions

1. Prepare your dough, combine lukewarm water, yeast and 1/2 tbsp of sugar in a bowl. Mix then place it in a warm location until frothy
2. In a large mixing bowl combine all remaining dough ingredients and yeast mixture. Place in a standing mixer then using a kneading hook, knead for 5 minutes in the lowest speed until it forms into a dough. Bring speed to medium then continue to knead for 20 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Remove mixing bowl from mixing stand then cover it with clean damp kitchen towel then place it in a warm location until it doubles in size.
3. Meanwhile prepare your pudding, in a food processor combine bread slices and milk pulse to make a loose paste. Pour this mixture in a large non-stick pan then add the rest of the pudding ingredients. Place pan in stove over medium heat then cook while continuously mixing until thick and dense like a pudding. Remove from heat then set it aside, let it completely cool down.
4. Back to your dough, remove it from the mixing bowl, deflate then flatten.
5. Divide evenly into 2 portions
6. Flatten each portion using a rolling pin into a shape of a rectangle, put filling in the middle of the top section as well as the middle of the bottom section.
7. Slice the dough in half
8. Pull together the edges of each half then seal, place them seam side down. Cut each section into 9 even pieces, this will leave you with 18 pieces. Place them in a baking paper lined baking tray.
9. Poke fork holes on top of each bread then set it aside.
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9 for the remaining portion. In total you will have 36 pieces.
11. Loosely cover both prepared and shaped bread with a kitchen towel or baking paper, let it rise for one more hour or until puffy.
12. Brush the tops of the dough with the egg wash.
13. Bake in a 180C preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until top turns golden brown.

---

Notes

I used a good quality high grade flour and yeast which gave me 36 pieces, each piece after baking was roughly 4 x 2 inches in size. If you want a larger piece, you can adjust the size of each bread and divide it 24 instead of 36.