Panettone Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret of panettone? ›

The proofing process alone takes several days, giving the cake its distinctive fluffy characteristics. It contains candied orange, citron, and lemon zest, as well as raisins, which are added dry and not soaked. Many other variations are available such as plain or with chocolate.

It seems that your Italian 00 or Canadian flour suits this best. For Panettone, it will undergo a lengthy, 2 day fermentation process with a sourdough starter.

Instantly recognisable for its tall, domed shape, panettone is more a bread than a cake, its sweet dough studded with candied fruits and raisins. Popular worldwide, it's usually pinpointed for its two main associations: with Christmas and with Italy.

While no sourdough baking processes can be considered “simple”, panettone is definitely takes complications to the extreme, with an unusual levain maintenance method (“pasta madre”, or mother dough), two dough builds (the “primo” and “secondo impastos”), and the necessity for exacting temperature and pH control ...

The dimensions should be around 13,5 cm / 5.3 inch diameter and a height of 9.5 cm / 3.7 inch. Panetonne needs to cool upside down after baking, because the delicate and fluffy bread would collapse if you leave it standing up after baking.

Many high-quality panettone varieties are produced by artisanal bakeries using traditional techniques. Artisanal production often results in smaller batches and more hands-on attention to detail, which can increase the overall cost of production.

By law an authentic panettone must contain 20 percent of its weight in fruit and 16 percent in butter. The origin of panettone is unknown, but many agree that the cake was first made in Milan as early as the 15th century, perhaps in the kitchens of the Milanese duke Ludovico Sforza.

Traditionally, panettone is served after the enormous Christmas day feast, however, very few have any room left for dessert, so we also eat our panettone in the mornings with a milky, frothy cappuccino. We also love it as our “Merenda” , a sweet snack in the afternoon with an espresso.

Artisanal panettone will have higher amounts of yolks and butter without emulsifiers or preservatives. They will contain real vanilla beans and not the cheaper vanillin. The fruit will be high quality candied citrus (not only orange, but often also pricier citron) and not industrial candied citrus with sulfur dioxide.

Do you put butter on panettone? ›

Panettone can be eaten in a variety of ways. It's commonly sliced and enjoyed as is, but it can also be toasted, buttered, used in desserts like bread pudding, or even paired with savoury dishes.

A close relative to its Christmas cousin, colomba is enjoyed for Easter. It's shaped like a dove bird, hence the name colomba, which translated to "dove" in Italian. Similar to panettone, the dough is comprised of flour, fresh eggs, butter, and natural yeast.

Aroma: The smell from your panettone should hit you as soon as you cut into it. This will be down to using good quality ingredients like Madagascan vanilla and local citrus fruit. Taste: Good panettone will be rich and buttery, with a great golden colour to match.

Actually, panettone has a very important rival, which is pandoro. Pandoro comes from Verona and is a sweet yeast bread without candied fruits and raisins. It is taller than panettone and has a 8-pointed star section. Being sweeter than panettone, it is usually the one children like the most.

In bread baker terms, panettone dough is within the brioche family, meaning that it's a mid-low hydration dough that uses eggs and milk in place of water, and is enriched with butter and sugar. Translation: Panettone is high in fat, which is why it's as delicious and satisfying as it is.

Panettone is a leavened bread, but the way we eat it is more like a cake. The sourdough base is incredibly rich, fortified with eggs, sugar, butter and dried fruit. It can also be flavoured with chocolate drops, while some even have a whole layer of melted chocolate over the top.

Fiori di Sicilia essence. I bought this from King Arthur Flour as well, and it's an essence of citrus and vanilla {a little different than an extract}. This definitely gives your panettone the traditional flavor.

1 – Scent: an intense and harmonious scent tells a lot about the choice of ingredients. In detail, the elements that participate in giving more than others a beautiful fragrance to the panettone are butter, vanilla beans and candied orange.

It's the high butter, sugar and egg content that does it. The fat and sugar make it moist with a low water content. That makes it an inhospitable environment for mold. High amounts of Butter and sugar is important.