Homemade Panettone, a little bit of Italy in your kitchen

Alright, last year I just gave you some pictures and links about making panettone, but not this year. This year I'm doing you right with a thorough tutorial on how to make this delicious sweet bread. I won't lie: it's a lot of work, but it's totally worth it.

So let's get started. Like any good European bread this takes two days to make, not active time but lots of waiting. First off I recommend reading this tutorial through twice and then printing it out if you don't have a device you can put in your kitchen. You can get panettone papers here or here.  Panettone can be made using either sourdough culture or bakers yeast. Although the sourdough version has the added health benefit of being fermented, we're not making panettone for health reasons! Since many of you don't have your own sourdough culture, I'm making this one step simpler by using bakers yeast.  I'm using grams and ml for the sake of accuracy. Click here for a grams to cups conversion chart, or even better, use a digital scale.

Ingredients:

• 750 grams of white flour, plus extra for dusting your work surface
• 25 grams of yeast
• 220 grams of butter, melted and cooled
• 4 whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 200 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon of orange extract or liquor
• 100 grams of raisins
• 2 pinches of salt
• 350 ml of water

Measure out 100 grams of flour.

Measure one teaspoon of yeast (25 grams) and 150 ml of water.

Mix the yeast into the water and let sit until it blooms or gets bubbly and foamy. Note I use SAF Instant yeast which doesn't require sugar. However if you are using packets of yeast, put in a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar as well so the yeast has something to munch on.

Then mix the bloomed yeast into the flour in your bowl. When all the liquid is incorporated it will look like this blob.

Cover the bowl with a dish towel that has been run under scalding hot water and wrung out. You want a moist hot towel. Place that in a warm spot on your counter, over the pilot light on your stove or like me I did, in the microwave. You can also put it in the oven with the light on. Leave overnight.

This is what it will look like the morning after. Nice and bubbly.

Measure out first 120 grams of flour

Then add it to the sponge.

Work with your hands until all the flour is incorporated, you may need to add a up to 30 grams more flour depending on how moist the air is that day.

It should be quiet soft and supple but not sticky. Place this dough in bowl and cover with a warm moist dish towel. Then allow to sit for up to six hours to double in size. You can see in the picture below this dough rising in the bucket behind the sugar.

Measure out the 200g of sugar.

In a small sauce pan bring the sugar and 200 ml water to a simmer and let it sit at simmer for up to 45 minutes until reduced and some what thick. Don't be tempted to rush things and raise the temperature, you'll turn it into hard candy!

While the syrup is reducing, boil some water in a tea kettle and then pour it over the raisins to reconstitute them.

While the syrup is cooling make a mountian of flour and then spread it out so it looks like a big ring.

Place the 4 whole eggs and two egg yolks in a bowl. Then break up your eggs and stir them until the yolks and whites are mixed.

Add the aromatics to the eggs.

Drain the raisns then add some flour and give them a good coating. This is so that they will stay even mixed in the dough and not drop to the bottom while baking.

Now take the dough, which has risen for several hours, and spread it out in the middle of your flour ring. You'll want to poke lots of holes in it like when you make a foccacia so that the butter as a place to go.

Begin py pouring the butter over the dough a little at a time working it in as you go.

It will start to break up a bit and look stringy but that's ok. Keep at it until all the butter is incorperated.

Mix together the eggs and cooled simple syrup.

Now do the same thing with the egg syrup mixture. Adding in a little bit of flour as you go.

Work until all the liquid and flour is incorporated. Now kneed in the raisins. If you want you can put in chocolate instead of raisins or candied fruits. I prefer just raisins. 

Kneed until evenly distributed.

Now cut the dough in half or for smaller loaves in quarters.

Then place one piece of dough into one the panettone papers. Cover with a cloth and let rise until just reaching the top of the paper.

Place in the oven at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. You'll want to test doneness with a bamboo skewer.  Don't over-bake or it will be very dry. You want light, slightly moist and aromatic crumb. Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack. I took these pictures the morning after so you won't see a cooling rack in the pics.  Serve for breakfast, dessert or snack!

Note: My panettones came out shorter then the papers because I should have cut the dough in two instead of 4. There wasn't quiet enough dough. You'll have to make that judgement call on your own. But you can always cut it down so it looks lovely like this! If you have any questions of comments please leave them below or you can e-mail me.