Italy Advisor

Never made a panettone? Work the dough, if possible, with a dough mixer also because beating times with a mixer are about 20 minutes, where hand-beating will require about 50.
The room? It must be warm, about 72 degrees F (22 C).

The flour? It should be about 68 F (20 C) and a very fine all-purpose flour, extremely dry.

The water? Again it should be warm, about 76 F (24 C).
Add also a pinch of salt, because this trick stimulates the rising.
Bakeries use a sour dough starter (like the wild yeast). Home recipes generally uses baker’s yeast, too.

The baking time? It will depend on the size of our panettone. An oven temperature of 400 F (200 C) will be fine for  half an hour of baking. This is ok for a small to medium-sized panettone: larger ones will require more time. Better to try a small-medium sized one, then, at home.
A little trick: slip a bowl of water into the oven when the panettone is half-baked to raise the humidity so the surface of the cake will be shining!
For a tall panettone, put a ring of heavily buttered thick paper around the dough then put it in the oven.  We have also a double rising to wait for!

For the first rising you will need5 ounces (140 g) fresh yeast cake, 3 1/3 cups (400 g) flour, 3/8 cup (90 g) unsalted butter, 5/8 cup (110 g) sugar, 6 yolks, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 4/5 cup (200 ml) tepid water
For the second rising, you will add 2 1/3 cups (280 g) flour, 5/8 cup (110 g) unsalted butter, 7/8 pound (400 g) sultana raisins,  1/2 cup (100 g) sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 6 yolks.

You have to start the afternoon before you actually bake the panettone. Cut the butter and melt it over a very low flame or a double boiler. Put the sugar in about 2/5 cup of warm water. Put the melted butter, salt, and yeast cake in a mixing bowl  and mix well.

Add the yolks and sugar and put in the flour. Mix for 25 minutes and put the dough in a lightly floured bowl. Cover it with a heavy cloth, and keep it warm.

After the raising, take the dough and work with the flour, vanilla, yolks and honey. Mix for about a half hour, put 2 tablespoons of the butter, melted as before, and a little water. Add the fruit, mix and round the balls of dough.

Let them rise in a warm place for a half hour. Put the panettone in panettone molds and put them in a warm spot to rise for 6 hours.

Put the panettone in the oven and Merry Christmas!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Italian Recipes and Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.