A Classic Italian Panettone

Less than a week until Christmas?! It is insane to think but even crazier when you say it out loud given that the time has really flown by since March. Here we are in Massachusetts with curfews, stage 2b or 3 of a lockdown and a pandemic that is still sweeping through the world at an alarming rate. It’s a year that has most certainly been unlike any other and instead of focusing on all of the bad, I am choosing to think of the good – because that is what Christmas is all about. I’m thankful for the health of my loved ones and although we will not be skiing in the mountains of Trentino, we will be virtually gathered and eating A LOT – the best part.

Like Pasqua, we will be deciding on a virtual meal that we can share course by course via video call and we’ll most likely already be planning for next years feast that will hopefully be enjoyed in person.

For our little house of two, I am looking forward to taking a few days to prep all of the wonderful things that I’m looking forward to cooking (focaccia, biscotti, etc) and one special dessert that is famous in Italy at Natale, a Panettone.

Now, Panettone is NOT something that many people in Italy would choose to make at home, because you can buy so many of these wonderful desserts at some top pasticceria’s and even at the supermarket for a low price with an amazing taste. Issue is, here in the U.S. I can buy a Panettone from Tre Marie, Motta and Bauli – but it comes with a price. Upwards of $25 and you can have this fine dessert, when some of the best brands are €5-10 in Italy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll pay the price because I love it, but this year I really wanted to test myself in the kitchen and make my own. Alas, my Panettone was born and I must say I’m pretty satisfied!

You will need to order these special paper molds in order to get the recipe just right, but you will have a pack of 10 so you can make panettone whenever you desire – also what a great gift idea! Lastly, another specialty item that I have had such a hard time finding in the states are candied orange peels – who would have thought that these would be so hard to find? They are also super delicious on their own and would make a great addition to a charcuterie board.

Ingredients First Dough:

375g of flour (farina)
185g of water (acqua)
5g of fresh yeast or 1.5g of dry yeast (lievito di birra or lievito di birra secco)

Ingredients Second Dough:

100g of sugar (zucchero)
80g egg yolks (tuorli)
90g of butter at room temperature (burro temperatura ambiente)
1g of salt (sale)

Ingredients Third Dough:

30g of flour (farina)
1g of fresh yeast of .3g of dry yeast (lievito fresco o lievito di birra secco)
2g of salt (sale)
10g water (acqua)
20g of eggs – I whisk mine and then weigh (uova)
40g sugar (zucchero)
40g butter at room temperature (burro temperatura ambiente)
10g honey mixture (miele come spiegato sotto)
4g white chocolate grated (cioccolato bianco)
85g candied orange peel (arancia canditi)
150g raisins (uvetta)

Ingredients Honey Mixture for Third Dough:

30g of honey (miele)
1/2 tsp of vanilla extract (1 bacca di vaniglia)
1 lemon zested (limone grattugiato)
1 orange zested (arancia grattugiata)

Preparation Day 1:

To start, make sure you have a full 20 hours to dedicate to this Panettone. My best advice if you wish to enjoy this on Christmas Day is that you start on 12/23 at around 5pm.
Take your raisins and soak them in hot water for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, drain them and put them in room temperature water for an additional 3-4 hours. I also like to add a bit of rum here for extra flavor.
While your raisins are soaking go ahead and prepare your “Honey Mixture” in a small dish. Add honey, vanilla, zest your full lemon and orange and then mix well. Cover this in plastic wrap, or if you’re like me and being eco-friendly, some reusable beeswax paper – and place it in the fridge to marinate.
When both of those steps are finished, it’s time to prepare the first dough. In a stand mixer, combine your flour, water and fresh yeast. Hint: I like to activate my fresh yeast with warm water and a small pinch of sugar before incorporating.

One the dough has come together and is uniform, you will then place into a lightly floured glass dish, add in a few knife scores and cover with your plastic wrap of choice. Since my house is pretty cold this time of year, I put my dough (covered) and in my oven to rise overnight for 12 hours – time is very important here.
Drain the water from your raisins and set these on a towel to dry off overnight.

Preparation Day 2:

The next morning, your dough should have risen a significant amount. If you’re like me and always anxious to see the end result, go ahead and use some of this time during the next few steps of prep to set a timer, tidy up the house (always fun ;)) and perhaps wrap some gifts. The key is knowing the time that each of these steps will take and ensuring that you are following them exactly.

Take this dough and add it to your stand mixer with the hook attachment.
Have all of your ingredients for dough 2 at room temperature so that everything gets incorporated evenly.
On the lowest speed, add your egg yolks a little at a time to the dough. This will take 5-10 minutes until the egg yolks are fully mixed.
Then take your sugar and incorporate this a little at a time to the dough.
Once the sugar has fully been incorporated you can then add the salt.
The dough will need to mix for about 15 minutes until you add the room temperature butter, always a little at a time. Patience is key during this preparation.
The dough is ready once you start to see the elasticity of the dough and the smooth sheen of the texture.

Place the dough on a clean wooden board (no flour) and use a plastic scraper to lightly form the dough into a round ball. Note: the dough will be very sticky so this isn’t the east step, but just do the best you can.
Place the dough into a tall plastic container or tall glass bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. Put into the oven (make sure it is off) with the light on to sit for 3-4 hours until it rises again.
This now gives you another 3-4 hours to make your lunch and finish matching all of those socks that you leave until the end of the laundry basket.

Wash and place the clean stand mixer bowl and hook into the refrigerator to cool while the dough rises.
After 3-4 hours, take the dough out of the oven and place on the wooden board. Work it with your hands (cover your hands in butter so they do not stick to the dough as much) and then place it back into the tall plastic or glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preparation for the Third Dough:

After 30 minutes have passed with the dough in the refrigerator, it is time to prepare the third and final version of this dough. This part has the most additional ingredients to add and when you will finally see the panettone come to life!

Using the bowl and hook attachment that were sitting in the refrigerator, add the cold dough to the bowl and turn the mixer on the slowest setting.
Add the flour, honey mixture and yeast to this dough to start. Again, I activated this small amount of fresh yeast before I added it to the bowl.
After these three ingredients have been incorporated well, add the salt.
Using the same technique as before, add the whisked egg a little at a time until everything is well-combined.
Add the sugar, a little at a time and once everything is combined, add in the water – again a little at a time. After the water, mix in the grated white chocolate.
Making sure that your butter is at room temperature, add this in to the dough – again a little at a time 😉
Once everything is homogeneous – you can finally add the raisins and the candied orange pieces (make sure these are diced and not actual slices).
Your dough should once again look very silky and smooth in texture, however you will now see the raisins and diced candied orange peels popping out. Isn’t she beautiful?

Put this dough back into the tall plastic container or glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the oven that is off for 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes, transport the dough back to the clean wooden board and allow dough to lay in a circular shape uncovered for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, weigh your dough to be 1,100g. There might be some excess which you can bake in a small cupcake mold.
After weighing the dough, work the dough again into a circular shape on the wooden board using your plastic scraper and buttered hands and leave another 15 minutes in the open air.
After this second 15 minutes, add the dough to your paper panettone mold and cover with plastic wrap and place in the oven (still off) for another 3-4 hours for the last leg of this panettone journey.
Once the dough has risen enough to where there is 2 centimeters left at the top, we can take it out of the oven and place on the counter.
Preheat your oven to 320 degrees F.

Give the oven 20 minutes to heat and your panettone to sit uncovered in the panettone paper mold on the counter. Before putting this in the oven, score an ‘X’ on the top of the dough and put little pieces of butter in the cracks.
Time to bake and be sure to watch your dough. I left mine in for 50 minutes, but I feel like I could have gone 55 minutes. I will be sure to try that next time. Be prepared, the entire house will smell SO good and you will want to cut into the panettone right away, however you must resist because the cooling process is just as important as the cooking!

When it is time to take the dough out of the oven, take 2-3 wooden skewer sticks and poke them through the bottom of the paper mold.
Next, you will want to turn the panettone upside-down in order to cool for 12 hours (at this point it will be overnight).

Day 3:

It is officially (and FINALLY) time to turn your panettone right side up and cut a slice out to enjoy the fruits of your labor! I also recommend that you store this panettone in a large plastic bag so that no air gets to it over the next few days.

Are you tired of reading this yet? Better yet, are you enjoying your very own homemade panettone? I surely hope so! I had the time to make two of my very own panettone cakes and my second one was surely the winner. It was almost as if I was traveling back to Italy and sharing this with family. We did promise each other that we would make this all together next year when thing are hopefully looking much different than this year has.

I hope that this brings you a some joy during this time and I would love to see all of your creations! Feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email if you have any questions – heather@becomeitaly.com.

Buon Natale a tutti!