Easy Italian Panettone Recipe - Holiday Recipes | Posh in Progress (2024)

FAQs

What is the best flour for panettone? ›

This recipe works best with high gluten flour or normal bread flour modified with added vital wheat gluten. It is available on some stores and online too. But, I used King Arthur bread flour (12.7% gluten) and added some Fairhavan Mill 00 pizza flour. 00 Pizza flour has a very fine granule and high gluten percentage.

Panettone is synonymous with Christmas in Italy. Traditionally, it is enjoyed post the Christmas Eve meal or on Christmas morning. Families gather around, often pairing slices of this sweet bread with a glass of sparkling wine like Prosecco or a sweet wine like Moscato d'Asti.

Panettone tends to be a little more expensive than most other baked goods, mainly due to the amount of time that goes into making each one. A traditional panettone is usually a lengthy procedure, however, a cheap mass-produced alternative will take shortcuts in the baking process which will be reflected in its taste.

Not only is the flavour influenced by the ingredients and fruit used in the panettone, but also by the mother yeast itself. The microclimate of each bakery can impact the bacteria levels in the yeast, with temperature and atmosphere all playing a part. Artisan bakers nurture their 'lievito madre' for decades.

Panettone Recipe. For panettone's tall structure you do need at least a medium protein flour with 10% protein. This is called baker's flour or bread and pizza flour and can be found at the supermarket and at specialty stores.

After slicing, store the remaining inside of the cellophane bag that it was originally wrapped in. This bag is specific for keeping the shelf-life of the panettone long, even after it is cut. If left whole and stored properly, the panettone will stay fresh and moist for about 4 weeks.

Storing and Freezing Panettone

The panettone should last up to five days, though it tends to be a bit drier after a day or two. I have never seen a scrap left after the first day. You can also wrap it in plastic and then foil, and freeze it for up to two months.

Unwrap packaging but keep the Panettone in its paper mold. Heat in oven (not microwave) for 5-10 minutes. Toast it and butter it. Great if you want a little at a time.

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.

Why do bakers hang panettone upside down? ›

It cools upside down

Since the dough is very rich, but also very airy, it tends to collapse and deflate as soon as it cools. For this reason, traditional panettone is skewered with a special rack right when it comes out of the oven, and immediately hung upside down for 8 hours to cool and rest.

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 ...

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.

A good panettone must come out of the cup and form a completely rounded dome – if it is flat it means that there was a cooking or leavening problem. 5- Alveolation: that is the cavities produced by the natural leavening of the panettone, which can be observed once cut.

From there they have diverged. All have a rich, yeast-risen, tender crumb; panettone's texture is more like cotton candy with its long, airy strands that literally melt in your mouth, whereas babka and brioche tend to be a bit denser and somewhat chewier, with a high ratio of butter and eggs to flour.

For cookies, bars, cakes/cupcakes, biscuits, scones, or anything that needs a tender crumb, use Farina di grano tenero, 00. This is your “cake flour.” Nobody wants a chewy cake. For bread, I recommend starting off with Farina di Manitoba, grano tenero, 0; this is similar to standard American bread flour.

Type 0. This is the Italian equivalent to our cake flour. It's a very fine, low-protein blend that creates tender baked goods like cakes and pastries, where chewiness is not the goal!

Beyond that, the rule of thumb for buying panettone is the same as buying most packaged food: the fewer ingredients, the better. By Italian law, a classic fruit panettone labeled “Made in Italy” must contain flour, sugar, eggs (and additional egg yolks), a high proportion of butter and candied citrus.

For long fermented doughs such as panettone the flour will be '00' but with a stronger gluten content than the '00' flour they'll sell for pizza or pasta making. An all-purpose flour can also be '00'.