Italian panettone

A Philippino friend told me that in the Philippines they start celebrating Christmas in September! I thought "wow, finally a place where they share my excitement with the holiday season!". I spent most of the year thinking about the Christmas season. Yes, it's true. No, I'm not crazy 😝!

Given the pandemic and the amount of restrictions, it seems we are celebrating Christmas early 🎉 Christmas is my favourite holiday for many reasons, the main one being that I love to sit with my loved ones around a table, eat my favourite foods, and have long conversations over endless sweets, dry fruits and more. And well, there's a magic vibe in the air that is hard to describe ✨

Although Panettone is not a tradition for Christmas where I'm from, these days its consumption is widely extended, and it has grown rather common to find one on most Christmas tables. Here in Switzerland, Mr. K requests panettone every year, and so every autumn I keep perfecting the recipe. I'm aware it would be easier to go and buy a panettone, but I'm a defender of everything homemade so 🙃

Soft, sweet, and fluffy, what's there not to love about panettone?

This is a recipe that involves generous amounts of sugar, eggs, and butter, that's why it's very important to use a special flour with a lot of gluten (aka manitoba flour). That's how Italians make panettone but it's rarely found in grocery stores in Switzerland. Nevertheless, all the panettones you see in these pictures were made with all-purpose flour. My little ones (each one was approximately 70g) grew because the dough wasn't as heavy as normal-size panettone (anywhere between 750g to 1kg that is).

I made little panettones to try something different, big 850g panettones are heavy monsters that require Manitoba flour and substantial shaping. The little ones are easy to shape, I can use all-purpose flour, don't need to ferment as long, and don't require to hang upside down for 6 hours. Yes, I know, calling them panettone is violating the art and charm of making panettone from scratch, but I wanted to experiment 🙊

Even though they are small in size, these took me two days from start to finish (Day 1: 7AM to Day 2: 9PM). That is to say, I followed the entire recipe like I'd do for a standard panettone. The recipe is a keeper. Texture, flavour and smell are irresistible, even to me. Frankly, I make lots of baked sweets because I enjoy making them, but I prefer savoury foods.

I couldn't stop eating these straight out of the oven: the bits of orange zest, chocolate chips, and golden raisins are addictive 😍 And the smell. Oh, goodness gracious. We went to bed that night with an intense butter flavour from the oven that stayed until the next day. I loved that 🤍

I used Joshua Weissmann's recipe for panettone, and I don't think I'll ever change to any other recipe. Like ever. Some minor modifications I added: chocolate chips instead of orange and lemon candied peel, walnuts instead of pistachios, and no glaze 🔝

Buon appetito!