Italians seem to lose their minds over sweet Christmas breads like Panettone and Pandoro (those might be the only two). Anyways, they are both leavened sweet breads that are made around Christmas (actually they are available here year round, in smaller quantities). As the holidays roll out every year, so do the hoards of Panettone & Pandoro. Every store, from the biggest to the smallest, clears out an entire aisle (which is saying something – some of these stores are really small) and fills it with piles and piles of mass-produced Christmas bread in a box. Looks something like this:

As you can see, there isn’t a shortage. And every time we go shopping (especially in the big “iper” markets), we see many Italians loading up their carts with piles and piles of Christmas bread boxes. Not just one or two, but people buy like 8-10 of them. I keep wondering what they do with them? I mean, they are delicious so it’s not beyond my imagination to eat one a day for the entire holiday. Of course, that would mean I’d have to subsist on Panettone alone and that’s probably an invitation for scurvy or diabetes. So I have to imagine that Italians have eleventy billion holiday parties and they bring a boxed Panettone to each one.

I honestly don’t remember when I first tried Panettone. I vaguely remember not liking it because it was a version with the “nuclear fruit” or “canditi” in Italian. I don’t even think it was in Italy, but I don’t know. Maybe it was. Anyway, I don’t like that fake fruit stuff. It’s nasty. And not even the best leavened bread on earth will make it better. But I do remember the first one that I liked. It was a few years ago in Seattle. I found an artisanal one at Whole Foods made by Essential Baking Company. I think it was marketed as “no nuclear fruit” or something, so I bought it. And it was amazing. And that was the beginning of my obsession. I tried finding the same brand the following year, but wasn’t successful. I remember emailing Whole Foods about it and being assured that they would get them any day now. Never happened. I went to all the stores. And never found it. I didn’t actually go to the bakery, because I wasn’t that obsessed, maybe? Or maybe just too lazy or busy? So I think I went a whole year without Panettone. Maybe. Memory is fuzzy. Then I think the next year, I was at the Metropolitan Market (if you can imagine… it’s a market that is even more expensive than Whole Foods) and they had a Panettone made by Gelatiamo, which is a local Italian gelateria/pasticceria (the woman who makes the Panettone each year, Maria, is from Italy. Her family has a bakery in some town here that’s been around for ages). That was some damn fine Panettone. Better than the Essential Baking Company… not that my memory of that was sharp, since I couldn’t get my hands on it after that one time.

So fast forward to last year. I got this itch to try and make it myself. I read that panettone is considered the “Everest of baking”. It’s really fucking hard to make. And I found that out the hard way… the way that made me question my love for the stuff… and for all things Italy. But eventually, after blood sweat and tears (ok, mostly tears), I got it right. And that was last Christmas. You can read all about it here, if you want to.

And here we are in Italy again for Christmas. And I get this crazy idea in my head to make Panettone in Italy. Read here for the backstory.

Alright, enough blabbity… let’s get on with it.

I made Panettone in Italy!!! All by hand too because we don’t have a mixer. The recipe is the same as last year, but I didn’t use the osomotolerant yeast or the diastatic malt powder. I could have probably asked for them at the cake shop, but I just thought they weren’t 100% necessary. Also my starter was very strong and active, so I figured that would help things along.

I mixed up the first dough on Tuesday morning. The one thing I’d do differently is make sure the butter is softer because I ended up with chunks of butter in the dough (on second thought, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?). I let it sit on the counter all day while we went for a day trip to Nardo to visit Mackenzie and Christopher. We got back just after 9pm (I think about 12 hours later, give or take) and the dough had filled the bowl to the rim. Very exciting! I popped it in the fridge to slow things down, knowing that the final dough would be mixed the next morning (normally you would mix up the first dough the night before, but I’m a rebel like that… and I let it ferment longer).

The next morning is when the fun really started. I gathered all the ingredients for the final dough. I scrubbed the marble counter top and started mixing things around 8:45 am. Without a mixer, the “mixing” of everything is pretty difficult, especially at first. I started initially mixing the stuff in a bowl, since it’s liquid and dry stuff and you gotta first incorporate it all. I tried like every mixing apparatus we have in this apartment. They all basically sucked and I ended up dumping everything directly onto the counter top.

This dough is sticky, very, very, very sticky. For a very wet, sticky dough like this, there’s a technique called “slap and fold” (or “slap and tickle” if you are my Husband). So I used that method to knead the dough. It is really really hard at first because the dough is so insanely sticky. I had huge dough ball hands for a long time. Thank goodness for the dough scraper we picked up. That thing was a life saver.

Alright, so slapping and tickling folding the dough… its more stretching and folding actually… builds the gluten, which is what you want in this dough. Then you start adding sugar, slowly, which, slowly, fucks up all your forward progress and makes the dough really sticky and almost soupy again. So adding it a little at a time over time is the best way. I think I spent a good 1 hour to 1:15 mixing in the sugar and building the gluten back up until I had a lovely “windowpane” of dough. At this point, the dough actually starts to pull away from everything (they describe in the mixer version the dough “pulling away from the sides”… yeah, so this was pulling away from the counter, my hands, the dough scraper, and anything else I may have actually flung the thing against). So it has a nice consistency at this point, but still very sticky.

Time for the butter. Oh, by the way, if you ever make this by hand, you will need a Husband (or equivalent) to do things for you that require hands. Like scratch your nose, add sugar to the dough, soften the butter more, take pictures, etc. Without a Husband (or equivalent), you’re basically screwed. Just forget about doing it by hand and go buy a mixer. Or get a Husband (or equivalent). Whichever.

Ok, butter. The other foil to gluten. I spread out the dough ball on the counter and smeared it with the properly softened (thank you, Husband (or equivalent)) butter and started the slap and fold again. In a way, it was easier because everything was all greased up. But the texture of the dough totally changed. It became more… marshmallowy, for lack of a better word, which isn’t actually a word. Once all the butter was incorporated, it was definitely pulling away from everything, which was nice.

I don’t always understand the order in which things with this dough happen, but I just follow instructions because I’m kind of an expert at following instructions. At this point, you are supposed to add water and honey. So Husband kindly mixed the two together in a glass and we put the dough back in a bowl and added water and honey. The dough gets all weird and slippery and just… uh, slippery and gooshy until you get the water mixed in. It’s kind of a pain. But it’s almost done. Just have to add all that candied orange and lemon peel as well as the raisins. Added those and mixed the fruit around and that was that. Put the dough into a big bowl to ferment for an hour. Half way through that, you fold it… something about gluten development… then you portion it into three pieces and let them rest for a while. After that, form balls and add those to the paper molds that are already prepped with skewers, so the finished bread can be hung upside down after the bake.

There were three breads, but only room in the oven for 2 at a time, so I put 2 of them near a heat source (heating pad) and the third in a cooler location, so it would take longer to proof. The first two proofed in about 4 hours and were ready for baking.

This is the point where I always have a moment of panic. To snip the tops or to just leave them. See, the first time I snipped the tops last year, the entire bread fell (over-proofed), so I always worry that is going to happen. Also, the kitchen shears we have are total shit, so I was even more afraid because they would have probably fucked up the snipping. I had an internal argument about it and “don’t snip the tops” won and the breads went in the oven. Everything in there seemed to go well, they rose more (that’s called Oven Spring) and we got them out and hung upside down without any collapse like last year.

Several hours later, the third one was ready. And we had been out on a walk in the meantime and purchased some new kitchen shears, so the top could be snipped. So I snipped the top, no collapsing, and tucked in a pat of butter and shoved it in the oven. This third one was really great. The oven spring was better and the overall look of the bread is nicer. It’s kind of rustic vs. a smooth top like the others (rustic is better in this case). Either way, they will be good (hopefully, this remains to be seen… you gotta wait a few days before you try it… for the cure), but the lesson I learned is always snip the tops.

Always. Snip. The. Tops.

PS – we cut open one of the non-snipped breads on Christmas morning. Schmeared on a little more butter and sampled. Delicious! We brought the nice looking one to Christmas dinner with my family here in Italy and everyone loved it… or they said they did. Haha. If I had one critique it would be that they might have been a smidge overcooked. They were just a little bit dry. And it’s also possible that the dough might have oxidized a little during the very long kneading process (this really is a thing). So… overall, they turned out very good, but I know I can do better. But we’ll just have to wait until next December to see for sure.

PPS – I took some selfies with the panettone. We look pretty festive!