Daring bakers make Panettone

The December 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by the talented Marcellina of Marcellina in Cucina. Marcellina challenged us to create our own custom Panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread!


If you are like us- you would almost always buy Panettone from the store during the holiday season.

Panettone:

Makes 2 Panettoni

Ingredients
Sponge
1 satchel (2¼ teaspoons) (7 gm) active dry yeast
1/3 cup (80 ml) warm water
½ cup (70 gm) unbleached all purpose flour
First Dough
1 satchel (2¼ teaspoons) (7 gm) active dry yeast
3 tablespoons (45 ml) warm water
2 large eggs, at room temp
1¼ cup (175 gm) unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour
¼ cup (55 gm) (2 oz) sugar
½ cup (1 stick) (115 gm) unsalted butter, at room temp
Second dough
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
2/3 cup (150 gm) (5-2/3 oz) sugar
3 tablespoons (45 ml) honey
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract
1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon essence/extract
1 teaspoon (5 ml) orange essence/extract
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) salt
1 cup (2 sticks) (225 gm) unsalted butter, at room temp
3 cups (420 gm) (15 oz) unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour; plus up to (2/3 cup) 100 gm for kneading
Filling and final dough
1½ cups (250 gm) (9 oz) raisins, cranberries, dried figs
½ cup (75 gm) (2-2/3 oz) homemade candied orange peel
1/2 cup candied ginger, chopped
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 to 3 tablespoons (30-45 ml) (15-25 gm) unbleached all-purpose (plain) flour

Directions:
Sponge

1. Mix the yeast and water in a small bowl and allow to stand until creamy. That’s about 10 minutes or so
2. Mix in the flour.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to double in size for about 20 to 30 minutes

First Dough
By Mixer:

1. In the mixer bowl, mix together the yeast and water and allow to stand until creamy. Again, about 10 minutes or so
2. With the paddle attached mix in the sponge, eggs, flour, and sugar.
3. Add in the butter and mix for 3 minutes until the dough is smooth and even.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and allow double in size, about 1 – 1 ¼ hours

Second dough By Mixer:

1. With the paddle mix in thoroughly the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, honey, vanilla, essences/extracts, and salt.
2. Mix in the butter until smooth.
3. Add the flour and slowly incorporate.
4. At this stage the dough will seem a little too soft, like cookie dough.
5. Replace the paddle with the dough hook and knead for about 2 minutes.
6. Turn out the dough and knead it on a well-floured surface until it sort of holds its shape.
7. Don’t knead in too much flour but you may need as much as 2/3 cup (100 gm). Be careful the excess flour will affect the finished product.

First Rise

1. Oil a large bowl lightly, plop in your dough and cover with plastic wrap
2. Now we need to let it rise until it has tripled in size. There are two ways to go about this.

• Rise in a warm place for 2 – 4 hours
• Or find a cool spot (64°F -68°F) (18°C – 20°C) and rise overnight
• Or rise for 2 hours on your kitchen bench then slow the rise down and place in the refrigerator overnight. If you do this it will take some time to wake up the next morning but I preferred this method.   

**Note: This did not work out so well- my dough did not triple at all- it doubled before I put in the refrigerator and that was it!**

Filling and Final Rise:

1. Soak the raisin, cranberries and dried figs in water 30 minutes before the end of the first rise. Drain and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Now take your dough and cut it in half. Remember we are making two panettoni.
3. Combine all your filling ingredients and mix well
4. Press out one portion of dough into an oval shape
5. Sprinkle over one quarter of the filling and roll up the dough into a log
6. Press out again into an oval shape and sprinkle over another quarter of the filling
7. Roll into a log shape again.
8. Repeat with the second portion of dough
9. Shape each into a ball and slip into your prepared pans, panettone papers or homemade panettone papers.
10. Cut an X into the top of each panettone and allow to double in size.
11. Rising time will vary according to method of first rise. If it has been in the refrigerator it could take 4 hours or more. If it has been rising on the kitchen bench in a warm place it should be doubled in about 2 hours.

**Note: This did not work out so well either - my dough did not double at all even after 4 hrs (it was out of the refrigerator for over an hour and a half)**

Baking

1. When you think your dough has only about 30 minutes left to rise preheat your oven to moderately hot 400°F/200°C/gas mark 6 and adjust your oven racks
2. Just before baking carefully (don’t deflate it!) cut the X into the dough again and place in a knob (a nut) of butter.
3. Place your panettoni in the oven and bake for 10 minutes
4. Reduce the heat to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4 and bake for another 10 minutes
5. Reduce the heat again to moderate 325°F/160°C/gas mark 3 and bake for 30 minutes until the tops are well browned and a skewer inserted into the panettone comes out clean.
6. Cooling your panettone is also important. If you have use papers (commercial or homemade) lie your panettoni on their side cushioned with rolled up towels. Turn gently as they cool. If you have used pans cool in the pans for 30 minutes then remove and cushion with towels as above.
7. Panettone can also be cooled suspended. How to do this? Firstly you need to use papers (commercial or homemade), insert clean knitting needles into the bottom of the panettone in a X shape. Flip over and support the knitting needles on the edges of a large saucepan with the panettone suspended within the saucepan. Yep, a lot of trouble and I didn’t really find that much difference – maybe I took too long to insert the needles.
   
   How to make homemade Panettone papers:
   
   
   
   Cut 6 long strips on baking parchment and arrange in a star pattern on a baking parchment lined oven tray. Staple the middle.
   
   
   
   Place the Panettone dough in the middle
   
   
   
   Wrap strips around the dough.
   
   
   
   Make a collar out of baking parchment using a cake pan or saucepan to give the shape and staple in place.
   
   
   
   Remove the collar from the cake pan and slip over the dough. Attach the strips of paper which cover the dough to the collar with staples.
   Bake as directed without removing from the oven tray.
   Looks rough but it works. Takes a bit of fiddling.
   
   **Note: we also made 2 baskets (thanks to the wise guy- he figured the engineering behind panettone papers and the baskets :)). One panettone was in the tall cylinder and the other half of dough, we halved it and placed in two baskets- obviously these baked slightly faster than the taller one. The baskets were from here, thanks to the Wild yeast blog **
   
   Judgement: 
   
   Thank you Marcellina - we would have never known how heavenly fresh panettone tastes but for this challenge! It smelled great and tasted even better- we actually had to consciosuly control ourselves from finishing all of it...