Il Panettone, the King of Italian Christmas cakes… Have you ever tried to do it at home? The process is going to seem long, but the yeast will make most of the work with five hours of leavening.

The origin of the Panettone is told by various legends, and among these we have chosen a really pretty one. It is said, a young falconer from Milan, Ughetto Atellani, was in love with Algisa, the baker’s daughter, and decided to become his apprentice. To increase sales Ughetto invented a cake using flour, eggs, butter and raisins; a dessert that was so successful that encouraged the baker to allow the marriage between the two lovers. Very romantic!

Panettone traditionally requires several days of leavening, using natural yeast… But nin order not to discourage you with too many hours, we have chosen a recipe that in half a day will allow you to prepare it, bake it and… Eat it! You can mix everything by hand or, if you have one, in a planetary. Your choice! 🙂

For best results, we recommend the use of homemade candies, fresh eggs and French or German butter.

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Stampa

Panettone

Cuisine Vegetarian

Prep Time 6 hours

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 7 hours

Servings 8 people

Difficulty

Ingredients

• 250 g of Manitoba flour
• 250 g of flour
• 200 g of sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 teaspoon demerare sugar for leavening
• 5 g salt
• 160 g butter
• 3 eggs and 4 egg yolks
• zest of one biologic lemon
• 12 grams of fresh yeast
• 60 ml of milk
• 120 grams of candied fruit of your choice for example: 60 grams of candied orange and 60 grams of candied citron
• 120 grams of raisins

Instructions

1. Le's start by preparing the ingredients, which must all be at room temperature for a better result. Mix the flours, dice the candied fruit, soak raisins and dice butter. Now we're ready to start.
2. Unite 10 g of fresh yeast with a teaspoon of sugar, milk and 100 grams of flours. Form a ball and let leaven one hour in the warm place, around 30° C. You can use the oven, after slightly warming it up, but very slightly not to kill the yeast. This first mixture will have the consistency of bread dough.
3. Now, add 180 g of flours, 2 g yeast, 2 eggs, 60 g sugar, 60 g of warm butter. Knead and let rise for an hour and a half, always in a warm place. The dough will be rather soft, but this is right.
4. After this time, add the remaining flour, the remaining eggs and egg yolks, sugar, butter, the seeds of vanilla, salt, lemon zest, raisins and candied fruits. Knead and let leaven for another hour and a half in warm place. It will have a soft consistency.
5. Now, line a panettone tin, or, if you do not have one, line the bottom and sides of a cake tin with a diameter of about 18 cm, but it should be at least 20-25 cm high. If you do not have this kind of tin either, you can use a steel pot (without plastic handles) of the same size, and line it... And yes, it may sound strange, but we tested it and it really works, without having to buy a special pan. Now pour the cake into the pan of your choice and let leaven another hour and a half in warm place. The dough will still have a soft consistency.
6. Slit the top of the cake with cross shape, and add about 10 grams of butter in the center. Bake at 190 °C for about 60 minutes. It's important to have a high oven, to avoid that the panettone darkens too much. If this happens, turn the temperature down to 180 °C. After this time, do the toothpick test.
7. Unmould and let it cool. Serve cut into slices, or topped with custard vanilla or chocolate ganache.