Chocolate Panettone
Panettone’s origin goes back to 1495. During the luxurious Christmas banquet given by the Duke of Milan, the desert got burnt. A young cook, called Toni, came up with a rich brioche bread, filled with raisins and candied fruit. The Duke loved it, and so the tradition of ‘Pane di Toni’ was born.Later, in 1821, Panettone became a symbol of liberty in Italy. Red candied cherries and green-coloured citrus replaced the raisins and fruit, creating the red, white and green Italian flag. A Christmas bread with an exceptional story, and – when made right – equally exceptional taste. Another story of the most alluring has it that a Milanese baker named Toni fell in love with a beautiful woman who walked past his bakery every day. In an attempt to lure her inside and win over her affections, he spent months creating this vanilla-perfumed loaf he called ‘Pan di Toni’ (Toni’s bread).Whatever its origins, panettone is now highly regarded throughout Italy and the rest of the world – particularly as a gift at Christmas. To get ready for the festive season, baking gets underway around the clock from late October, and row upon row of beautifully packaged panettone adorn the windows of Italian delicatessens and bakeries.Around 1925, the recipe was adapted by a competitor, Gioacchino Alemagna, who also gave his name to a popular brand that still exists today. The stiff competition between the two led to the growth of the industrial production of the cake-like bread.Making a traditional panettone the Italian way is a lengthy procedure. The proving process alone can take several days, allowing the flavours to mature and the distinctive fluffy texture to develop. It is then baked in precise temperature-controlled ovens and, straight after cooking, hung upside-down to cool, which stretches the warm cake, giving it its characteristic dome shape.Panettone has actually been a worldly product from the very beginning. From the Middle Ages onward, the pastry was appropriate for a feast day precisely because it involved ingredients that were hard to come by. In the 15th century—a period in which bread flour usually involved cheaper grains like spelt and rye—the first panettone was made entirely from wheat flour, and thus more likely to impress the in-laws. And given the climate of northern Italy, additions like candied citron or orange peel would have had to come from hundreds of miles away, beyond, perhaps, even the borders of modern-day Italy.When Vegis proposed me to make a recipe using the candied lemon from Rapunzel, Panettone was the first recipe I tought of. I added some chocolate cream with hazelnuts and it was so delicious, I can't even describe it. Is perfect for Christmas and so delicious. Do not be discouraged by the complexity of the dessert, I am sure you will succeed if you follow the steps and have patience.
Ingredients
Leaven
- 40 g sugar
- 7 g dry yeast
- 250 ml warm milk
- 150 g flour
Panettone
- 250 g manitoba flour
- 250 g 000 flour
- 80 g sugar
- 200 g softened butter
- 3 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 15 g dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 100 g candied lemon
- 100 g chocolate drops
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 350 g chocolate spread
Instructions
Leaven
- In a bowl mix warm milk with dry yeast. Add the sugar, flour and mix until you get a homogenous composition.
- Let the leaven in a warm place for 10-15 minutes.
Panettone
- In a bowl add the flour, salt, dry yeast and the leaven and mix. Add the eggs, the egg yolks and start to knead until you get a homogenous dough, about 10-15 minutes.
- Add the butter gradually and knead for about 15 minutes. At this stage, the gluten network is developed from the flour, which means the threads are formed, giving elasticity to the dough.
- At the end add the vanilla extract, candied lemon and chocolate drops and knead until well incorporated.
- Put the dough in a bowl greased with oil and leave it to rise for 40-60 minutes, or until it doubles in volume.
- Take the dough and roll it out into a rectangle. Add the chocolate spread and roll the dough. Try to roll it in such a way that it is closed at the ends to avoid leaking the chocolate cream.
- Bake the panettone in the preheated oven at 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes. After the first 20-25 minutes, cover the panettone with baking paper so that it do not burn. After the panettone is baked, take it out of the oven, take it out of the pan, put 2 skewer sticks in it and let it cool upside down to keep it fluffy.
Notes
