Day 6: Panettone

My first contact with panettone was back in 1996 when I was interrailing in southern Europe during the Christmas holidays. In Italy, I bought a huge panettone to take home with me and tied it to my tiny backpack, to the amusement of many co-travelers. But it certainly was worth the trouble!

Ever since, I’ve been a regular user of those mouth-watering Italian Christmas cakes. About two years ago, I realized that it would theoretically be possible to bake one at home, but I still didn’t dare trying it myself. “It’s just too complicated, it’s better to buy one”, advised even the owners of an Italian restaurant back in Germany.

I decided that this year it was time to make my own perfect panettone. Not a "fake one" like I’ baked before - sweet bread with the same flavours as panettone – but a real one.

And judging by everything else but the taste, I’ve managed it this time. (I’ll only be able to taste my panettone tomorrow, but I’ll let you know how it was as soon as we’ve had breakfast!)

The recipe I used is based on this Italian recipe. My Italian is far from being perfect, and I understood roughly half of what I read. I even tried Google translating it into Finnish – which only resulted in the best laugh I’ve had in a long, long time. (It seems that the machine translation has only developed in quantity, not in quality since the time I was studying :) )

This is what you need for 1 big panettone (about 1300g) or two small ones (about 650g):

For the first dough:

• 60g very stiff sourdough starter, refreshed three times with the same flour you’re going to use for your panettone


• 1g fresh yeast, dissolved in 90ml water


• 75g sugar


• 70g egg yolks


• 240g flour (I used a mixture of Italian flour type 00 and all-purpose flour)


• 85g butter

 

For the second dough:

• all of the first dough


• 40ml water


• 80g egg yolks


• 2 Tbsp sugar


• 2 Tbsp orange syrup (from the homemade candied orange peel)


• aromatic butter - made with 90g butter, melted the previous day together with 1 Tbsp honey, 1 vanilla pod, and the grated zest of 1 organic lemon and 1 organic orange, then stored in a cool place


• 120g raisins


• 60g homemade dried orange peels, in small cubes


• 2g salt (4 if using unsalted butter)


• about 200g flour (the original recipe said 60g, but I needed a lot more)

First of all, you need to make sure your sourdough starter is ready for the job! Refresh it on the first day three times, first at about 7AM, then at noon, and still at 4PM or so. Use the same flour as you are going to use for the panettone – special panettone flour seems to be available, but not here, so I used a mixture of all-purpose flour and Italian flour type 00. Make sure that your starter at least doubles in size between the feedings. The original recipe said it should triple – mine the most certainly didn’t; then again, I couldn’t control the temperature – it should have been 28-30C, and even in the warmest and most draft free spot in my kitchen, the temperature must not have been more than 25C. The starter should also be stiffer than usual - for 100g of starter, I used 100g flour and 40ml of water for the first feeding, then 100g flour and 70-80ml of water for the second and the third one.

During the first day, prepare the candied orange peels (use this recipe, only cut the peels into small cubes, instead of long stripes) and the aromatic butter for the second dough.

At about 7 or 8 PM, prepare the first dough. Combine all ingredients of the first dough in a baking bowl and knead about 10-15 minutes (I don’t have any kitchen machine, so I knead by hand). Then cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and place in a warm and draft free place and let ferment overnight.

In the morning, check that the dough has at least doubled in volume. (If it hasn’t, too bad – my guess is that you’ll have to start all over again!) Mine had, so I proceeded to the second dough.



Add all the ingredients of the second dough into the first dough (remember to remove the vanilla pod from the aromatic butter!) and knead again about 10-15 minutes. Let the dough rest about 1 hour in a warmish place (about 25C). In the meantime, prepare your panettone papers: I didn’t have any, so I looked for instructions for making my own. This is what I used to make mine, and it worked well! Thank you, Chef in disguise!

Then place the panettone in the panettone paper. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and proof until doubled in size, again in a warmish and draft free place. This took about 8 hours.

Heat the oven to 190C and bake the panettone about 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160C or so, and bake until well baked. Panettone tends to burn on top, so keep an extra parchment paper on hand – if needed, just wet it and cover the panettone with it.

Take the panettone out and let cool enough that you can touch it without burning.

Now comes the weirdest part: one way or another, you should be able to hang your panettone upside down for the next 12 hours or so. The best way to do this is to wash well 2 knitting needles for each panettone, push them through it and place on top of a bowl (or on top of four glasses turned upside down, like I did). Be careful if using metal needles like I did: they get very hot!



Some recipes said you could eat your panettone right away, others instructed to wait a couple of days. Well, I don’t care, I the most certainly will try the first one tomorrow!

Sweet dreams :)

7.12: And here's the final product: