Activates cooking mode with step tracking, timers, and screen wake lock
Why Panettone? Because it looks awesome, in very short. It’s like Polish traditional bakes – everyone bakes the same think, but no two bakes are the same.
I chose the recipe from the Bakery Bits page. The slight alterations involved using normal yeast, normal sugar instead of pearl and adding sultanas in rum.
I was missing white sourdough. I took a teaspoon of rye starter and fed it 100 g water, 100 g plain flour. After a day I disposed most of it and fed the same way.
To prepare the sultanas, I took a handful of them and put in a small pan with a bit of rum (haven’t used any particular quantities). After putting it on a small heat for a couple minutes I took it of when it started steaming and left it in a warm place for an hour or so. I made more than needed and will use them for the second batch.
One thing I need to stress here: teaspoon is not a tablespoon, even though it’s only one “b” away. I read “tsp” as “tbsp” which caused the cake to leave a very strong soap-like aftertaste. Still, it was tasty enough to go in the first day.
Fresh panettone with fresh coffee
I heard it was super difficult to make Panettone. In my experience the main difficulty was having to hold the mixer for 15 minutes because it was jumping around like crazy before the dough consistency changed. In practice you need a mixer that will withstand about 40 minutes of almost constant mixing on quite high speed. Note that many budget friendly kitchen robots require a long break after 15 minutes of mixing. Just a warning.
Time Planning
You’ll need about 40 minutes to mix the dough and place in the baking forms, 3-3.5 hours proofing (to double the size) and 40-60 minutes baking. I recommend getting the paper baking forms (I used 500 gram ones). They look nice, hold shape nicely and don’t occupy space waiting for the next Christmas. A powerful mixer with a dough hook is a must, unless you enjoy mixing by hand for a couple hours.
Panettone
Ingredients
175 g sourdough starter
150 ml milk
4 medium eggs (I used large ones, they worked well)
3 teaspoons aroma panettone (this is a mixture of citrus oils of bergamot, orange, lemon and tangerine, with a bit of vanilla extract)
10 g yeast (the recipe calls for osmotolerant yeast, I used regular ones. I haven’t seen any rise impediment)
650 g type “00” Italian style flour (I did a bit of searching, and it turns out German notation for this flour is Type 450, and French is T45; I’m not sure if it is 100% replaceable, haven’t tried yet; it could be that type of grains used makes a lot of difference)
175 g caster sugar
240 g room temperature butter, cut in small cubes to get incorporated in the dough
100 g candied orange peel (could have used more)
100 g sultanas in rum
a bit of sugar for coating the top
Instructions
Put starter, milk, eggs, extract, yeast, flour and sugar in a bowl and start mixing using a high speed on your mixer (I used about 50% of maximum speed as the mixer started jumping around, but then again I think it was the right speed). It needs to mix for 15-20 minutes. The dough worked wonderfully. This was the first time I worked with type “00” flour and it is a very interesting experience
The dough
The dough (before adding butter)
Start adding butter in small portions. After adding it all, mix for another 5-6 minutes to make sure it gets evenly incorporated
Add the orange peel and raisins, mix for another minute
Split the dough in three and place each in the panettone case. It should occupy about a third of the form, and after 3-3.5 hours proofing it should double the volume. Make sure you leave space between the forms as they might surprise you with the rise
In the tins
30 minutes before baking set the oven to 175 C and sprinkle the cakes with some sugar
After proofing
Bake for about 40-45 minutes (or 55-60 in my case). Use a skewer to check if the dough is completely baked – if you get bits of dough on the skewer, give it a couple more minutes Again, make sure you leave space for the heat to reach the whole of the cake. We forgot about it once and on the touch points there was a bit of raw dough If the oven burns things on the outside quickly, cover it around with the kitchen foil for the first 20 minutes.
Panettone
This is an incredible cake. The flavours are very interesting – the mixture of aromas does really well, but at the same time raisins and orange peel add to the overall experience.
I would really suggest making your own peel. I bought some at store out of curiosity and have thrown it away without using – it was horrible, hardly any flavour, strange smell, and the looks not the most attractive in the world.
Panettone
I’ve run out of orange peel now. If I manage to make any more, I’ll bake a one more batch, right for Christmas.
