Italian Easter panettone cake. Italian Easter cake “Panettone”. And a few words about the process of preparing Panettone
![Italian Easter panettone cake. Italian Easter cake “Panettone”. And a few words about the process of preparing Panettone](https://i1.wp.com/image1.thematicnews.com/uploads/images/00/00/45/2016/12/24/17404364a8.jpg)
Italian muffins are famous all over the world; nowhere else are they prepared such soft, fluffy, aromatic pastries. Luxury bread is baked for Christmas, Easter, and any holiday feast.
An important nuance: it is better to prepare the Christmas cake in advance so that it can stand for several days and be saturated with the aromas of dried fruits. After 2-3 days you can cut it! A great idea is to give your favorite friends a hearty slice of festive cupcake, wrapped in a beautiful package!
INGREDIENTS
800 g flour
1 tbsp. milk
1.5 tbsp. Sahara
40 g fresh yeast
150 g butter
3 eggs2 egg yolks
2/3 tbsp. candied fruits
150 g raisins
150 g dried apricots
1 tsp. nutmeg
0.5 tsp. cardamom
1 tbsp. l. grated lemon or orange zest
2 packets of vanilla sugar
Grind the yeast with 2 tbsp. l. Sahara. Add 3-4 tbsp to them. l. warm milk. Add 2 tbsp here. l. flour, mix well. Leave the mixture for about 15 minutes until small bubbles appear on its surface. Sift 2 tbsp. flour into a bowl. Pour warm milk into the flour, mix well. The mass at this stage should be viscous! Add prepared yeast to it. Stir the dough carefully until smooth. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours. Beat the eggs until foamy, add the yolks, stir everything and pour into the dough. Add softened butter, cut into pieces, and sugar here. Add another 3 tbsp. flour, sugar and spices. For flavor you can add 2 tbsp. l. cognac or rum, this will also give the cake a special taste.
Leave the well-kneaded dough to proof for 2 hours in a warm place. Cut the candied fruits and dried fruits into small pieces. If you want to make a Christmas cake with dried fruits and nuts, now is the time to add the nuts, also cutting them into small pieces. Steamed raisins - how delicious they will be in the finished dough... Knead the dough again. Grease the mold, place the dough in it and leave it to rise in a warm place for another 1 hour. Bake the cake at 180 degrees for about 45–50 minutes.
You can decorate the Christmas cake with whipped egg white and nuts, or you can simply brush the dough with yolk before placing it in the oven.
You can also melt the marmalade with a little water in the microwave and decorate the top of the cupcake with it! It will be bright and very unusual. Nuts and any dried fruits will also be used during the decorating process!
With red wine, hot chocolate, cocoa, coffee or tea - this magnificent cupcake will go perfectly with any drink. And with traditional Christmas ones - even better!
Bread of luxury is what the name of the Italian Easter cake “Panettone” means in translation. Having once bought this incredibly delicious pastry in a store, I was eager to try making it at home. It turned out great, and all thanks to the proven recipe!
Italian Easter
INGREDIENTS
- 170 g raisins
- 20 g light rum
- 20 g hot water
- 3 eggs
- 1 packet of vanillin
- 40 g honey
- 130 g candied fruits
- 540 g flour
- 150 g sugar
- 5 g active dry yeast
- 2 g salt
- 6 g lemon zest
- 250 g softened butter
- 1 tbsp. l. melted butter
- 1 tbsp. l. chilled butter
COOKING
- Pour the raisins with a mixture of rum and 2 tbsp. l. warm water.
- Mix flour, yeast, sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla using a blender. You can use a vanilla pod: the baked goods will be even more fragrant! Separately, beat the eggs with warm water and honey.
- Mix dry ingredients with egg mixture using a blender. The dough should be homogeneous! Slowly add the softened butter to the dough, one spoon at a time, without ceasing to beat.
- Combine steamed raisins with candied fruits and melted butter, add the finished mixture to the dough.
- Place the dough in a large bowl and cover with cling film. The dough will rise for 15 hours and should triple in size, so keep this in mind when choosing a container.
- Lightly flour the finished dough and form it into a ball, placing it in a baking pan.
- Cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and leave it to rise for another 4-5 hours in a warm, draft-free room.
- Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.
- Make a cut in the shape of a cross on the top of the Easter and place a piece of cold butter in the indentation. Check the readiness of the cake with a match: it should come out of the dough slightly moist, in no case wet.
- Take out the finished panettone and let it cool. Can be decorated Italian cake dried fruits, placing them on top, or you can traditionally pour it with thick glaze.
On the bright holiday of the Resurrection of Christ, you so want to please your loved ones and treat them to the most delicious dishes. Try to make an airy cake that all Italians adore - you won’t go wrong!
Traditional Panettone is very similar to Easter cake, but there are still differences in the method of preparation and in the taste of the final product. This is a long-cooking recipe with two long stages of fermentation and then proofing of the dough in the molds. The entire process of preparing Italian Christmas cake (Panettone) - from kneading to cooling - takes almost a day.
This recipe is translated from an Italian site, and the weight of the products is converted from European cups to grams. Since the recipe is long, I will indicate the approximate start time for each step as a guide.
In the evening (at 11 p.m.), pour a mixture of rum and hot water over the raisins, cover the bowl with the raisins and put them in the refrigerator overnight. During this time, the raisins should absorb almost all the liquid and aroma from the alcohol.
The remaining dried fruits/candied fruits can be taken to taste, as in the photo - equal parts candied papaya, dried cranberries and finely chopped candied ginger. We remove the zest from the lemon and orange and grind it, the eggs and butter for the dough should be at room temperature, the water for dissolving the yeast should be pleasantly warm.
12.00 the next day. Let's knead the dough; to do this, add honey, sugar, vanillin to warm water and mix everything with a whisk until the sugar dissolves. Then add the yeast and stir until the yeast dissolves. Add the eggs and mix everything again until a homogeneous mixture is obtained.
Next, add flour, starting the kneading with 500 grams of flour, add salt. Knead the sticky and still liquid dough with your hands. As soon as there are no lumps of dry flour left in the dough, we begin to gradually mix in soft butter, adding it literally 1 tablespoon at a time, kneading the dough well each time.
A large amount of butter will make the dough even more liquid; gradually add the remaining flour (250 grams). You may need a little less/more flour. Place the infused raisins in a sieve to drain any liquid that has not been absorbed overnight. Add raisins to the dough along with the rest of the candied fruits/dried fruits and chopped zest. Mix dried fruits and candied fruits into the dough; the result should be a soft, sticky dough that holds its shape.
In total, it took 30 minutes to knead the dough. Round the dough and place it in a large bowl greased with vegetable oil. Cover the bowl with the dough and leave it at room temperature for 3 hours (from 12.30 to 17.30).
During this time, you can make a couple of kneads, but the dough rises very slowly, because there is a lot of baking and the dough is heavy. However, after 3 hours the dough had risen noticeably. We knead it again and put it in the refrigerator until 10.00 am.
The chilled dough does not stick at all, which is very convenient when molding panettone pieces. Knead the dough. Depending on the size of the panettone baking pans, divide the dough into parts and form each into a dense, smooth ball. The dough ball should take up a little more than 1/2 of the volume of the baking dish. It is better to take paper baking dishes, because the finished panettone is cooled in a special way, but more on that later.
Cover the molds with the dough and leave at room temperature for final proofing for about 5 hours (until 15.00). During this time, the dough will warm up and rise almost to the edges of the molds. As soon as this happens, carefully use a very sharp knife or blade to make deep cross-shaped cuts on each cupcake, and put a piece of chilled butter in the middle of the cut.
Preheat the oven to a temperature of 170-180 degrees, bake the pies in a preheated oven for 60-70 minutes or until done.
While baking, Italian Christmas panettone cupcakes can be decorated with an almond glaze, similar to a nutty, crunchy meringue. To do this, 15 minutes before the products are ready, mix almond flour (or finely ground nuts), corn starch, sugar and egg white in a small bowl.
Mix everything, quickly remove the pan with panettone from the oven, generously grease the top with glaze, sprinkle with almond petals and powdered sugar. Everything needs to be done as quickly as possible, because the glaze from hot products tends to flow down the sides. It is necessary to apply the glaze to the almost finished cake, when it is already sufficiently browned, otherwise the center of the cake may settle. Quickly put the pans back in the oven to bake until fully cooked.
The products (not glazed) will turn out very ruddy, almost brown. Glazed pannetone will have a crispy crust. A wooden stick inserted into the middle of the panettone should come out clean and dry.
These Italian pies are baked in paper molds not only for aesthetic reasons. Panettone is usually chilled upside down. To do this, pierce the hot products through with skewers at a height of 1-2 cm from the base and hang them upside down until they cool completely. This is done due to the peculiarity of the dough - it is very tender and while hot it can settle under its own weight. Therefore, in order to preserve the structure of the dough and the shape of the panettone, they need to be cooled this way.
There may be a problem with the almond glaze - it may partially fall off if handled so unceremoniously, but flaws can be masked by sprinkling the cooled cake with an additional layer of powdered sugar.
The long journey of preparing the Italian Christmas cake Panettone is over. And let me tell you a beautiful legend about the origin of this “bread of luxury”.
In the 15th century, a Milanese nobleman fell in love with the daughter of a baker, Toni, whose bakery was going through difficult times. But the noble family did not like this choice. In order to continue to see his beloved, the nobleman, wearing a mask, got a job in the bakery of the girl’s father. Having bought butter and sugar, he added them to the mixture from which bread was baked in the bakery. This bread soon became popular. And to please his beloved, before Christmas, the nobleman in love added raisins and candied fruits to the dough. The bread became so popular that the nobleman's family relented and allowed the lovers to get married. And the bread got the name pan del ton or Tony bread.
Bon appetit!
It is impossible to imagine the Italian Easter table without the delicious Panettone cake, which looks very similar to our traditional Easter cake. According to official history, this cake was first baked in the 16th century for Duke Ludovico il Moro according to his own recipe, which has not changed since then.
At the same time, the Italians themselves like to associate the appearance of this culinary masterpiece with the romantic legend about the young man Tony from a rich and influential family who fell in love with the daughter of a Milanese baker. To be closer to his beloved, Tony hired himself as an apprentice to her father, and so that the girl would pay attention to him, he invented a recipe for amazing-tasting sweet bread in the shape of a dome with raisins, lemon zest and orange slices. Hence the name of the cake “Pani di Antonio” (“Bread from Tony”).
Panettone is served in slices and goes wonderfully with sweet red wine.
How to cook Panettone
Ingredients:
- 850g flour
- 25g yeast
- 50 g sugar for dough
- 1 tbsp. l sugar for dough
- 180g butter
- 2 eggs
- 4 yolks
- 150g raisins
- 100 g candied fruits
- 100 g nuts
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup water
Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Add half a glass of flour and stir. Leave under the towel for 20-30 minutes.
Sprinkle the rest of the flour onto a wooden surface. Create a small funnel and pour melted butter, sugar, eggs, yolks and dough into it. Knead - the dough should come out fluffy and thin. Add candied fruits, raisins and nuts, stir. Leave the dough for 1.5-2 hours in a warm place until the dough volume has at least doubled.
Fill 1/3 of the baking pan with dough, having previously covered it with parchment. Leave in a warm place for 1 hour until the dough fills the pan to the brim.
Bake Panettone for 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 190 C degrees, then another 20-30 minutes at 160 C degrees. Check readiness with a wooden skewer.
- Cake dough loves heat, so you should not place it in a drafty area.
- The dough must be kneaded thoroughly: well-kneaded dough can be easily cut and will not stick to the knife.
- Before baking, be sure to preheat the oven well to 150-180 degrees.
- To prevent the cake from burning, line the pan with oiled parchment.
- The baking pan must be filled 1/3 full as the dough will rise.
- You need to place the pan in the oven very carefully so that the dough does not settle.
- While baking Panettone, do not open the oven too often.
- We check the readiness of Panettone like this: take a stick or wooden skewer and carefully pierce the cake. If the match remains dry, the cake is ready.
- The cake should be coated with powdered sugar/glaze immediately after baking.
4 recipes for making Italian Christmas cake Panettone
Panettone (from Italian panettone) is a traditional Italian Christmas cupcake with a dome shape. Outwardly, it is very similar to our Easter cake. Traditionally, panettone is prepared for the Christmas holidays from yeast dough. Raisins, candied fruits, nuts, candied fruits, honey, spices, and marzipan are added to the famous pie. Before serving, it is sprinkled with powdered sugar, glazed, tied with a ribbon or wrapped in beautiful paper.
The appearance of panettone cake is surrounded by legends. According to one version, its name comes from Italian. “pan del ton”, which means “bread of luxury”. The famous pie was first prepared in the 15th century in Milan, at the court of Duke Ludovico Moro. Panettone became famous throughout the world only in the 19th century, thanks to the confectioner-entrepreneurs Gioacchino Alemagna and Angelo Motta. And today this wonderful Milanese cake is served on the Christmas table not only in Italy, but also in Uruguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Peru and other countries. In Latin America it is called King Cake.
In this article we will tell you how to prepare panettone and get acquainted with the most popular recipes for this wonderful pie.
4 recipes for making panettone
Recipe 1. Classic panettone
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You will need: for biga (sourdough) – 15 g of fresh yeast (or 5 g of dry), 80 g of Manitoba flour (with a protein content of 12%) and 40 g of warm water. For the first batch: 2 yolks, 70 g sugar, 70 g butter, 90 g sourdough, 170 g water at room temperature, 260 g flour (40% regular and 60% Manitoba). For the second batch: first batch dough, 20 g melted butter, 2 yolks, 60 g flour (40% regular and 60% Manitoba), 20 g sugar, 3 g salt, 10 g honey, 170 g raisins, 85 g orange and candied lemon peel, a bottle of vanilla and orange flavoring.
To prepare the starter, dissolve the yeast in warm water, add half the flour and start kneading the dough. Gradually add the remaining flour. Form the finished dough into a bun, place in a bowl, cover with film and let stand away from drafts, in a warm place, for 4-8 hours. The starter should double in size. For the first batch, combine the starter with water, knead and, gradually adding flour, continue kneading. Then add the yolks and knead for a few more minutes. When the dough begins to pull away from the walls of the bowl, you can add sugar without stopping kneading. Then cut the room temperature butter into pieces and combine it with the dough. Knead until it becomes completely smooth. Then roll it into a ball, return it to the bowl, cover with film or a towel and place in a warm place for 4-8 hours. You can start the second kneading when the dough has tripled in size: knead it, add flour, honey, then salt, and when the dough comes away from the walls of the dish, add sugar without stopping kneading. Add the yolks one at a time, and then add flavorings, melted (but not hot) butter and knead for at least another half hour. The result should be very smooth, similar to stretch dough, which can easily be stretched into a thin film. Add raisins and finely chopped candied fruits to it, knead thoroughly, place on the table, stretch with your hands, fold 2 times in the form of an envelope, cover with a towel and leave to rise for 45 minutes. Then stretch the dough again, fold it 2 times again in the form of an envelope, and then roll it into a ball. If you have a metal baking dish, generously grease it with oil (there is no need to grease paper) and lay out the dough (it should fill the mold by 1/3). Preheat the oven well, turn it off, place a bowl of boiling water on the bottom, and a bowl of dough on top; after 4-6 hours it should rise to the top of the mold. Then remove the dough from the oven and leave it in the open air until the crust forms, about 45 minutes. To make the cake unfold like a flower, take a very thin and sharp knife and cut the crust crosswise, and then trim the dough a little under each triangle, turning the sharp corners onto the edges of the pan, brush them with melted butter and return the cut edges to their place, giving the cake the same appearance. view. First, place the pie in an oven preheated to 190° for 6-7 minutes, then open the door, release the resulting steam, reduce the temperature to 180° and bake for 40-45 minutes. If the surface of the cake begins to brown too much, cover the cake with foil to prevent it from burning. Cool the finished panettone, pierce it with two knitting needles approximately in the middle and hang it over a large saucepan for 9-11 hours so that the cake does not touch either the bottom or the walls. To prevent panettone from drying out, store it in a plastic bag.
Recipe 2. Classic panettone: quick recipe
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You will need: for the dough – 250 ml of warm milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 packet of dry yeast, 150 g of flour; for the dough - 3 eggs, 100 g butter, zest of 1 lemon, 400 g flour, 1 glass of a mixture of nuts, dried fruits and candied fruits, a pinch of vanilla sugar, 150 g granulated sugar.
Sift the flour. To make the dough, dissolve yeast in warm milk, add sugar, sifted flour, cover with cling film and leave for an hour. Using a fine grater, remove the zest from the lemon, combine with sugar in a bowl, add 2 eggs, 1 yolk and butter. Mix the flour with salt, place it in a heap on the table, make a depression in the middle, pour in the dough and knead the dough. It should not be too sticky. Add candied fruits to the dough, knead well, form a ball, place in a bowl, cover with cling film and let rest for 1.5 hours. Sprinkle the table with flour, turn out the dough, when it has risen well, knead it a little and set aside. Grease the baking dish, place the dough in it, cover it again with film and leave for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°. Whisk the remaining egg white with 1 tablespoon of water, brush the pie with this mixture and place in a hot oven. Bake for about 1 hour. Remove the finished cake from the oven, carefully run a knife along the edge of the pan, and when it has cooled, carefully remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.
Recipe 3. Spicy panettone
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You will need: 3 cups of sifted flour, 2/3 cup of sugar, 100 g of butter, 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 25 g of fresh pressed yeast, a pinch of salt, 100 g of candied fruits, 125 ml of warm milk, 2 eggs, 2/3 cup of raisins, powdered sugar for decorating the pie, cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg - to taste (about 0.5 teaspoon each).
For the dough, mix and grind the yeast, a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar into a paste with a spoon, pour in warm milk, add a little more than half a glass of flour and mix well. Rub with a spoon until the dough reaches a uniform consistency - it should be slightly thinner than pancake batter. Wrap the finished dough in a towel and place it in a warm place. And so that it rises quickly and well, in about 1 hour, take a larger pan, pour hot water into it and place a bowl of dough in this pan. To maintain a constant water temperature, place the pan on low heat from time to time to warm the water, or add boiling water. After thoroughly stirring the prepared dough, add eggs beaten with sugar (the maturity of the dough can be determined by its holey, loose consistency and sharp sour smell). Shake the dough, add softened butter cut into pieces, mix well, sift 2 cups of flour and season with cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg (about 0.5 teaspoon each). Knead soft, elastic dough. Do not add flour during kneading, even if the dough sticks to your hands and the table, especially at the beginning; within 10 minutes it should become more elastic and dense. A little flour can be added only if the dough remains runny and cannot be assembled into a bun. Let the finished dough double in size in a warm place. This will take 1.5 hours, since there is not much baking in it. Rinse the raisins, soak in hot water for 10 minutes, rinse again and dry on a paper towel. Cut the candied fruits to make pieces the size of raisins. Punch down the dough, add raisins and candied fruits and knead again, trying to evenly distribute the additives throughout the dough. Take a metal mold like for an Easter cake - round and with high walls, line it with baking paper, grease the bottom and sides with vegetable oil and lightly dust with flour. Fill the mold with dough, about halfway, let the cake rise (the dough should rise to the sides of the mold) and place in the oven, preheated to 180° for 1 hour. Check the readiness of the cake with a thin wooden skewer: if the cake is baked, it should remain completely dry. Cool the finished pie on a wire rack. Store in a box or pan in a cool, dry place. The cake must sit until the holidays, soak in the aromas, and gain flavor.
Recipe 4. Walnut panettone
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You will need: 100 ml of milk, 100 g of seedless raisins, 1.5 tablespoons of lemon juice, 40 g of fresh yeast, 4 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of rum, 150 g of butter + another piece for greasing the mold and pie, 0, 5 teaspoons of salt, 400 g of flour, 1 cup of powdered sugar, 125 g of apricot jam, 1 bag of vanilla sugar, 4 eggs + 2 yolks, 50 g of candied cherries, as well as candied lemon and orange peel, 100 g of peeled almonds.
Melt the butter. Soak the raisins in rum for 20 minutes. Pour flour into a bowl, add salt and pour in cooled butter. Dissolve yeast, eggs, yolks, granulated sugar and vanilla in warm milk. Pour the resulting mixture into the flour. Mix with a mixer for 5 minutes. Chop the cherries. Finely chop almonds and candied fruits and add to the dough along with raisins. Mix the dough well, cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for 40 minutes. Grease the cake pan generously with oil. Fold baking paper into 2 layers, cut out a rectangle measuring 35x30 cm, make a ring out of it, secure with a paper clip and insert the resulting “structure” into a springform pan. Using this technique you will make the sides of the mold higher. Preheat the oven to 200°. Beat the dough with a spoon, cover with a towel and leave for another 10 minutes. Place the dough in the pan, cover and let it rest until it comes up to the edges made of paper. Bake the pie on the lower level of the oven until browned - about 60-70 minutes (be sure to check readiness with a wooden stick), greasing it several times during baking with softened butter. If the surface of the pie begins to brown early or becomes intensely brown, wrap it on top with damp paper. Cool the finished panettone in the pan for 5 minutes, removing from the oven, then remove the sides of the pan (leave the paper ones - they need to be removed immediately before cutting the pie) and cool on a wire rack. For the glaze, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice. Brush the top of the pie with heated confiture and pour glaze over it.
Secrets of how to cook delicious panettone
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1. Quality products
The highest quality ingredients, especially flour (it is better to take whole grain or special Italian type Manitoba and mix it with white flour), repeated kneading, the absence of drafts and cold air flows during the preparation of the dough - these are the most important secrets of a successful Milanese pie. In addition, all panettone ingredients should be at room temperature.
2. Proper mixing
In order for the crumb to acquire a fibrous structure with large holes and at the same time an elastic structure, at each stage of preparation the dough must be kneaded very well. If you do this not by hand, but with the help of special equipment, remember: it is very important not to overdo it. The correct dough for panettone resembles chewing gum: it is homogeneous, elastic, has a viscous structure and lags well from the walls of the dish.
3. And one more secret: To prevent the cake from burning, you can put a container of water in the oven. When the oven is warmed up well and the water is boiling, you can put the cake to bake.
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The dough for panettone takes quite a long time to knead, but the pie itself turns out light, airy and incredibly aromatic. Be sure to prepare this extraordinary dessert for the holidays! On the eve of Christmas, its smell will fill the house with comfort, and its taste will once again make you convinced that homemade baked goods are the most delicious!
Enjoy delicious Italian panettone cake, delight your loved ones and be happy!