I’ve wanted to make panettone for years now and I have to admit that I was petrified with fear. I don’t know why but the idea just terrified me! Now that I’ve made it, I have to say it’s really not bad. It did take me a few tries to get to the perfect recipe, but in the end, it turned out reaaaaally good.
In Perú, where I’m from, panettone is the king of December. It’s available all year round but it’s the main food group in December. Personally, I LOVE to have it toasted with butter <3. Yes, buttery dough with extra butter, lol. It’s the best way of eating it. What I do have to say is that in general, I don’t like confit fruit. Or not the commercial type at least. Those brightly-coloured tiny squares are barely fruit anymore! In this recipe, I used a mix of black and golden raisins, but you can just skip them or usee chocolate, nuts or (okay) confit fruit instead.
Panettone is so yummy, soft and absolutely delicious. It’s an enriched dough, just like a brioche. This means that it has extra ingredients with fat in them (in this case eggs and butter) apart from the essential flour, salt, yeast and water. This makes the dough denser and 500 times more delicious. Also, the zest of orange and lemon as well as the rum gives it an incredible flavour, you don’t need extracts or flavourings.
For this recipe, I typically usee my stand mixer to knead and incorporate the butter which makes it pretty easy. However, you can totally make it by hand! The inclusion of the butter is slightly messy by hand and it’s scary because it feels like it’s not working, but it’s completely doable. Actually, I do thee butter inclusion by hand in my brioche Nantaise video so go check that out :). This is just my favourite for Christmas and I will definitely be making them as a gift for friends and loved ones.
Ingredients
- 600 g all-purpose flour
- 8 g instant yeast or 16g active dry yeast or 32g fresh yeast
- 200 g lukewarm water
- 150 g granulated sugar
- 11 g salt
- 1 tbsp rum white or blonde
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- Zest from 1 orange
- Zest from ½ lemon
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 160 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 180 g raisins or chocolate or nuts or nothing 🙂 I used half golden and half black raisins
Instructions
- Mix the water in the recipe with 150g of the recipe's flour and the yeast in a bowl. Let it rest for 30 minutes. When you look at it after that time it should look very fluffy, this is called a "sponge". If you don't see any activity it's because your yeast isn't working.
- As the yeast is activating, hydrate your raisins in boiling water for 10 minutes so they're not too dry. Place them on a colander and let them release the excess water.
- Add the rest of the flour (450g) to the sponge along with the sugar, salt, eggs, egg yolk, rum, orange and lemon zest and vanilla. Mix by using your hands or the hook attachment on an electric mixer. Knead for 20 minutes by hand or 10 minutes on medium heat with the electric mixer. The dough should be slightly sticky, you can adjust the texture by adding 1 tbsp of flour or water at a time. This will depend on the size of your eggs.
- After kneading, add the butter at room temperature, one tablespoon at a time as it incorporates to the dough. At first, it will be harder to incorporate and will get easier as you go. By hand is a bit messy but totally doable! Check out my brioche recipe where I do this by hand on video.
- Once the butter is completely incorporated, knead a bit more until the dough looks smooth and shuiny. Add the raisins / chocolate / nuts or whatever you want to add and mix them in.
- Place the dough on a bowl, cover it with plastic and place in the fridge for at least 8 hours and 24h tops.
- Knock down the dough and flatten it slightly. Fold it again at the centre like a parcel. Turn it so that the place where the dough joins together is against the countertop. Spin it with two hands to seal it and also try to make it thinner and taller so it fits into the paper mould. Place the dough into the paper mould, made for 1kg.
- Let the dough proof for 3 hours in a warm spot.
- Preheat your oven at 180°C/350°F. Before baking, score the top of the dough in a cross using a lame or an old-style razor blade.
- Bake the Panettone for 30 minutes with top and bottom heat if your oven is electric, and then 40 extra minutes with only bottom heat. If you have a gas oven, then the heat comes only from the bottom, so cook it directly for 1h10min. If it's golden enough after 30 minutes, place tin foil on top.
- When you remove it from the oven, it needs to cool down hanging upside down, this prevents the crumb from becoming thick. For that, you want to use a skewer and poke it through the panettone close to the base. The paper will help it stay in place and not break the crumb. Use the skewers to hang the panettone upside-down between two objects.
- Cut a piece and enjoy :). My favourite way to enjoy it is toasted with butter.
