Panettone

There’s one lesson that all enthusiastic cooks should learn early. It’s also one that I should have learned years ago. But it’s one that I didn’t pay enough heed to at the start of the day. That lesson? Always make sure you have the right ingredients ready to hand. Especially if you’re planning on making something that can take up to 10 hours to prove...

So, I got up on a Sunday morning, happy with the thought that I had the day off work and would finally have time to make the panettone that I’d been intending to make for about 3 weeks. I leisurely came downstairs and flicked through the relevant recipe book to see where I needed to start. Cue the “oh pants” moment. The first step required 2 eggs. I had 1. It was 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning; no shops would be open until 11 and my local shops are notoriously bad with their egg stocking. Uh oh.

So, my best laid plans were kinda scuppered. No early start for panettone making; it wasn’t until about 11.40 that I managed to get hold of my second egg. More flicking through the recipe... increased eye-widening and raising of eyebrows as I spotted not 1, not 2, but 4 different development stages involving 1 hour plus waiting. Oh well; I didn’t want an early night anyway.

When I finally got all my ingredients ready, things went as follows. 125g strong white bread flour went into a large mixing bowl and got mixed with 75g caster sugar. I made a well in the middle and in said well went 2 roughly-beaten eggs and 3 tablespoons lukewarm water containing 15g fresh yeast. This all got mixed together into a “thick, smooth batter”. I sprinkled flour on top to stop too much of a film forming on top and left the mix to develop plenty of bubbles.

Beware; don’t do what I did and add the lukewarm water to 2 cold eggs. They were meant to be room temperature but they’d got a bit cold in the frost outside. The result was that the temperature of the mix dropped and 2 hours rather than 1 for lots of bubbles to develop.

It got there eventually. Time for the next lot of ingredients. I combined 2 egg yolks, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and the finely-grated zests of 1 lemon and 1 orange and this then got combined with the batter by hand. I then gradually worked in 175g strong white bread flour and ½ teaspoon salt. The aim was a “soft and very sticky dough”. It was soft and sticky, but not quite as sticky as I thought it needed to be for the next step (you’ll get what I mean soon), so I added a touch more water before proceeding.

Because the next step involved butter. Lots of butter. 175g of the unsalted stuff had been softening at room temperature and was now cubed and added to the dough. The recipe described what was needed for the next step fairly astutely, but I can tell you now that it wasn’t refined or elegant. The butter had to be incorporated into the dough; the most effective method was to squeeze it “through your fingers” until all the streaks were gone (thus the need for quite a sticky dough). Memories of playing with mud came flooding back...

The eventually streak-free dough got turned out onto a work surface that had bee floured with some of the rest of the flour that needed incorporating; 100g if we’re being precise, although the recipe did say that more or less either side might be needed so as to achieve the right consistency. I kneaded for 10 minutes until I had a “satiny soft and very pliable, but not sticky” dough. It went into a clean bowl to double in size but it had to be without too much encouragement as the butter could melt if the dough got too warm. It was going to be an anxious 2-2 ½ hour wait.

I have to admit that I got a little impatient and decided to encourage the dough by making the environment just a little warmer. I think this showed when I came to the doubled-in-size dough because it had a bit of a yellowy stickiness to it... definitely butter, unless the water from our tap is doing funny things these days. But it wasn’t horrendously sticky, so I thought I’d got away with it. I punched the dough down to knock the air out of the pockets that had formed, then covered it up to double in size again. With butter on my mind, I resisted the temptation to encourage the dough again.

I distracted myself with some of the other prep that needed doing. Chopping up chocolate is always a good distraction. 50g of it needed chopping and got put in a bowl with 75g sultanas and 50g candied peel, all of which got tossed in a teaspoon of flour to remove the outside stickiness and stop it clumping together. I also had the fun *note sarcasm* of lining my special 15cm cake tin. It needed a double layer of greaseproof paper on both the bottom and the sides, and the sides needed to extend 5cm above the side of the tin because the panettone needs plenty of room to grow upwards. You know the lining of a tin has gotten serious when you need to break out a tape measure.

The proving time ended... no encouragement needed this time... and I turned the dough onto a lightly-floured worktop and spread it out into a rectangle. The instructions were to “sprinkle” the sultanas, mixed peel and chocolate onto the dough and to “gently” fold it in. This didn’t quite happen in reality. Far too much of the stuff to “sprinkle” it and, although I tried to be gentle, its sheer volume also meant that it took quite a lot of work to incorporate it, and even then I don’t think I managed it very evenly. I wasn’t particularly pleased with that step but I carried on anyway by shaping the dough into a ball and placing it gently in the lined tin. I used the tip of a sharp knife to make a cross in the top... although I think I did it a tad too deep. The hole then got loosely covered with cling film for the dough to double in size. Again. You’re beginning to see why I needed to start this earlier in the day. Especially as I was managing to do every step just slightly wrong.

Close to the end of proving, I preheated the oven to 200°C and got 25g of butter melted with another knob of butter weighing 15g to hand. I brushed the top of the loaf (the cross pretty much beyond recognition by this stage) with half the melted butter and put the 15g in the middle of the cross. It went in the oven for 10 minutes to colour up slightly... just enough time for me to get into the latest episode of Sherlock to then be dragged away again. The oven got turned down to 180°C , the rest of the melted butter went on top (and some of it leaked out of the tin onto the kitchen floor...) and it went back in the oven for 40 minutes... well timed for the end of the episode of Sherlock.

Taking pictures of bread at 6 in the

morning is a funny thing to be doing...

When it came out of the oven, it was a little browner than it was meant to be. It cooled in the tin on a wire wrack for 10 minutes before I gently eased it out of the tin. Definitely no opportunity to snaffle bit of the loaf that day because it was already past my bed time. It got to cool completely, but not on the wrack it went into a cloth bag and hung from a cupboard door handle to cool overnight.

So panettone for breakfast next morning was the obvious choice. As I thought, I’d overbaked it slightly and it had a bit of a thicker, more coloured crust than it was meant to. I was also right in thinking that I hadn’t distributed the sweet bits particularly well because they were a bit few and far between, except in the odd slice that had loads. The overall texture was quite airy and light, so it hadn’t completely fallen down on all points, but I’d already known that my execution on this one hadn’t been stunning. It’s one that I’ll probably try doing again; must try harder next time.

Simplified recipe

Ingredients

400g strong white bread flour

75g caster sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature, broken up

3 tablespoons lukewarm water

15g fresh yeast

2 egg yolks at room temperature

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Finely grated zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

½ teaspoon salt

175g unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small cubes

75g sultanas

50g candied peel

50g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces

40g butter, to finish

You will also need a 15cm cake tin or panettone mould. The recipe book also suggests using a coffee tin or catering-size baked bean tin if you don’t have anything of this size

Method

1.       Combine 125g of the flour and all of the sugar in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre

2.       Crumble the fresh yeast into the lukewarm water

3.       Pour the water/yeast and the whole eggs into the well in the dry mix. Combine the contents of the bowl until they form a smooth batter without lumps. Leave for 1 hour until “very bubbly”

4.       Combine the egg yolks, vanilla extract and orange and lemon zest and mix into the batter

5.       Gradually work around 175g of the flour into the batter until it forms a “soft and very sticky dough”

6.       Add the cubed butter to the dough and work it in by squeezing it and the dough through your fingers until there are no streaks

7.       Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. The dough now needs to be worked while the rest of the weighed flour is also gradually incorporated into the dough. Work the dough until it becomes “satiny soft and very pliable, but not sticky” so you may need more or less flour than you have weighed out

8.       Place the dough in a clean mixing bowl and cover. Leave to prove at room temperature so as not to melt the butter. Prove until doubled in size; 2-2 ½ hours

9.       Once proved, uncover the dough and “punch down” to knock out the air. Cover it again and leave the double in size for a second time (around 1-1 ½ hours)

10.   Put the sultanas, candied peel and chocolate in a bowl and add a teaspoon of flour. Toss the mix to coat the stuff in flour and remove any clumped bits

11.   Line the tin for the panettone. If you can get one, this is done most easily with a panettone liner. If you can’t, put a double layer of greaseproof paper on both the base and the sides of the tin. The paper up the sides needs to rise 5cm higher than the sides of the tin

12.   Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down again and turn it onto a flour work surface. Do your best to gently spread it out, then sprinkle the mixed fruit and chocolate on top of the dough and gently knead it in until evenly distributed

13.   Shape the dough into a ball and carefully place it in the lined tin. Use the tip of a sharp knife to cut a shallow X into the top of the dough. Loosely cover the hole with cling film and leave the dough to double in size again; around another 1-1 ½ hours

14.   Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F or gas mark 6)

15.   Melt 25g of the butter “to finish” and carefully brush the top of the loaf with half of this. Place the remaining 15g of butter in the middle of the cross

16.   Put the panettone in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, until it just starts to colour. Turn the oven down to 180°C (350°F or gas mark 4) and baste the top of the loaf with the remaining butter. Cook for a further 40 minutes until the loaf is a deep golden brown and a skewer or thin, sharp knife inserted in the middle comes out clean

17.   Allow the panettone to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, which will allow the crust to firm up slightly. Remove it carefully from the tin, remove the greaseproof paper and lay it on its side to cool completely. Alternatively, hang it in a clean string or cloth bag; this helps distribute the weight more around the delicate crust

References

The Great British Bake Off: How to Bake, Linda Collister, BBC Books, 2011