Panettone
Matthew McAuliffe • 1 November 2018
A traditional Italian Christmas cake, this light and fluffy sweet bread is full of festive flavours and a really delicious alternative to the typical English Christmas cake. It’s great with a cup of tea, or spread with mascarpone – and any leftovers make great bread and butter pudding. This recipe makes four large Panettone, so halving the recipe might be a good idea if you do not want to make so many, but it does keep well and I’m certain it won’t last very long – it doesn’t in our house! It must also be made a few days before you want to eat it, to allow resting time.
Ingredients:
Starter:
1kg Strong bread flour
500g Milk
100g Egg yolk
200g soft butter
10g of fresh yeast
The Panettone:
Your starter
300g strong bread flour
15g salt
300g sugar
150g egg yolk
200g soft butter
700g selection of dried fruit, sultanas, candied fruit and chocolate chips (you can also make this just chocolate chips and it tastes amazing!)
30g honey
50g milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Equipment:
A mixer
Panettone cases, which can be bought online or a Panettone tin – Lakeland sell a great one, alternately you can use the bottom of a giant cupcake mould.
First of all, you need to make the starter of the panettone. Place the flour, milk, egg yolk and yeast in a mixer and mix until your dough starts to form and becomes shiny, then add the butter and continue to mix for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once that time is up cover your bowl in Clingfilm and let it rise for 10 – 12 hours, until the dough has risen to four times its original size.
The next day, place your starter, flour and milk in the mixer and mix until the dough becomes shiny again (when I say shiny, it really does become shiny, you’ll be able to tell). Add your sugar and mix just to incorporate. Whilst mixing add in your egg yolks and your butter and continue to mix, then mix in your vanilla essence and honey. After five minutes, whilst everything is still mixing add in all your fruit and chocolate. This whole process will take one hour and once you’re done mixing leave your dough to rest for another hour and again it will rise to four times the amount.
After resting, turn your dough out on the table and divide it into four, shape it into balls and place it in moulds. It then has to rise for another five hours in a warm place, if it’s a little cold it may take a little longer to rise.
After this second resting period make a cross in the top and put a tablespoon of butter in the cross. Bake at 180 degrees for one hour or you can test with a thermometer which should reach 92 degrees.
Once out of the over the panettones must be hung upside down for 24hours, this is important so the panettones don’t sink. We usually hang them by piercing large metal kebab skewers through the bottom of the panettone, and rest them on boxes.
After 24 hours your panettone is ready to eat. Please remember to prepare this well in advance if you need it for a special occasion and enjoy
Love the pudding girl xo
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