blog.vinaio.com

  

Pandoro (pan d’oro) is a traditional Italian sweet yeast bread most popular around and Christmas and New Year. Tipically a Veronese product, pandoro is traditionally shaped like a frustum with an 8 pointed- stars section.

It is often served dusted with vanilla scented icing sugar made to resemble the snowy peaks of the Italian Alps during Christmas.

Modern taste sometimes calls for Pandoro to have a hole cut into its bottom and a part of the soft interior to be removed, the cavity is then filled with Chantilly cream or vanilla gelato. Cream or gelato can be served as a garnish to pandoro slices.

The first citation of a dessert clearly identified as Pandoro dates to the 18th century. The dessert certainly figured in the cuisine of the Venetian aristocracy. Venice was the principal market for spices as late as the 18th century as well as for the sugar that by then had replaced honey in European pastries and breads made from leavened dough. And it was at Verona, in Venetian territory, that the formula for making pandoro was developed and perfected, a process that required a century. The modern history of this dessert bread began at Verona on October 30, 1894, when Domenico Melegatti obtained a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially. Pandoro was also the last meal eaten by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini before his execution in 1945.

 

RECIPE

Yeast Mixture:

1/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Cake

5 cups all-purpose flour

8 egg yolks, plus 1 egg

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup water

1 lemon, zested

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/2 cup water

 

Directions

In a small bowl, combine the water, yeast, sugar, 1 egg yolk, and 1/2 cup flour, and blend well. Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

On a clean work surface, mound 3 of the remaining cups of flour and make a well in the center. In a medium bowl, beat together 4 of the egg yolks, 1/2-cup sugar, the butter and 1/2 cup water. Add the yeast combination from above and mix well. Pour the entire mixture into the flour well and gradually mix the flour into the liquids to form a sticky dough. Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes, or use the dough hook attachment on an electric mixer. The dough should remain somewhat tacky, unlike bread dough.

Grease or oil a large bowl and add the dough, turning to coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours.

Punch down the dough and add the remaining flour, egg yolks, 1/2 cup water, egg, sugar and lemon zest and knead until blended, then knead for an additional 10 minutes on a floured work surface. Place in a greased or buttered bowl and cover with plastic wrap then let rise for an additional 2 hours.Butter and flour two pandoro molds or coffee cans. Punch the dough down, divide it in 2, and roll each piece into a ball. Place one ball in each of the molds, and let rise for 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 170° . Bake the pandoro for 35 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let rest for 10 minutes, thenunmold and let cool completely.

Drizzle the pandoro with the the confectioners’ sugar

 

Is a type of sweet bread loaf originally from Milan. It has a cupolawhich extends from a cylindrical base and is usually about 12-15 cm high for a panettone weighing 1 kg.

In the early 20th century, two enterprising Milanese bakers began to produce panettone in large quantities in the rest of Italy. In 1919, Angelo Motta started producing his eponymous brand of cakes. It was also Motta who revolutionised the traditional panettone by giving it its tall domed shape by making the dough rise three times, or almost 20 hours, before cooking, giving it its now-familiar light texture. The recipe was adapted shortly after by another baker, Gioacchino Alemagna, around 1925, who also gave his name to a popular brand that still exists today. The stiff competition between the two that then ensued led to industrial production of the cake-like bread. Nestlè took over the brands together in the late 1990s, but Bauli,an Italian bakery company based in Verona acquired Motta and Alemagna from Nestlé.

As a result of the fierce competition, by the end of World War II, panettone was cheap enough for anyone and soon became the country’s leading Christmas sweet. Northern Italian immigrants to Argentina and Brazil also brought their love of panettone, and panettone is enjoyed for Christmas with hot cocoa or liquor during the holiday season, which became a mainstream tradition in those countries.

RECIPE

 

15g fresh yeast

125ml full-fat milk, warm

400g strong white flour plus extra for dusting

3 pinches of salt

16g fresh yeast

125ml full-fat milk, warm

2 medium eggs

80g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

150g salted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for brushing

120g mixed candied peel, chopped

60g raisins

 

Brush a 15cm diameter cake tin or soufflé dish with a little butter then line with a double layer of greaseproof paper and ensure that you leave a ‘collar’ of paper 8cm above the top of the tin. Oil the inside of a large bowl.

Melt the yeast in the milk, making sure that it is completely dissolved.

Setting aside 2 tablespoons of the flour, sift the remaining amount into a large bowl, sprinkle over the salt and make a well in the centre. Pour in the yeast and milk with the whole eggs and gently mix all the ingredients together to make a thick batter. Sprinkle over the reserved flour and leave the sponge in a warm place for 35 minutes.

Add in the sugar and egg yolks and mix together to create soft dough, then work in the soft butter then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic and shape into a ball.

Place the dough ball in the oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave it to rise in a warm place away from draughts for 2 hours.

 

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and punch down. Gently knead in the candied peel and raisins. Shape again into a ball and place in the prepared tin. Cover with clingfilm and leave it to rise in a warm place away from draughts for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5.

Use a sharp knife to cut a cross on the top and brush with a little butter.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes. Lower the temperature to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4, brush the top with more butter and continue to cook for a further 30 minutes.

Once out of the oven, cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Panettone is perfect served at room temperature.