About Panettone
5 comments
(2 votes, average: 5.50 out of 10)
Loading ...Share This Article
Panettone is synonymous with tradition: Christmas in Italy wouldn’t be the same without it. A star of every meal across the holidays, you can have it toasted at breakfast with coffee, between meals with Marsala wine, and after dinner with spumante or moscato d’asti.
There are essentially two types of panettone – the boxed panettone that you get in the supermarket, and the rich, wholesome panettone that you buy at an Italian pastry shop. The latter is the real deal – real panettone, and is not a dry cake, but a soft, sweet bread of large proportions traditionally made with sultanas and other candied fruit.
Native to Milan, panettone is one of the two Italian sweet yeast breads served mainly on Christmas day. Acidic dough used to make panettone is cured before being shaped into a cupola, which extends from a cylindrical base. Raisins, candied orange, citron, and lemon zest are added to the bread for flavoring. Regional variations for panettone include serving with Crema di Mascarpone, or chocolate.
The original recipe was written about 500 years ago in Milano. It called for a deep base, about 30 cm high for a 1 kg panettone, but it did not specify the diameter. This lack of detail left room for the Piemontesi (inhabitants of Piemonte) to come up with their own interpretation, a panettone of same height but much wider. Efforts are underway to obtain Protected Designation of Origin (Denominazione di Origine Controllata – DOC) status for this product. The Italian Agriculture Ministry is looking at ways to protect the real Italian panettone from growing competition in Latin America.
Merry Christmas to you and your family. Thanks for all the great recipes you’ve given us this year. Looking forward to more wonderful stories and recipes in 2012!!
Thanks. Say hi to everyone and merry Christmas. Ed
Dear Garrubbo,
I like your website and I have found it very informative. However, I do not agree with your recipe for panettone. Cream of tartar and baking soda have nothing to do with panettone (you are not making Irish bread!) and it is mortifying to see those two ingredients in the list of ingredients. As you said, the real panettone is made with “lievito naturale” (a.k.a Madre), a type of sourdough which is refreshed few times, to increase its strength, before to use it in the first “primo impasto” (first dough). It is a long process, about 30 hours and it is nealry impossible to make the real panettone at home, unless you have specialist equipment and a solid baking/pastry background. You should buy Carol Field book “The Italian baker” and check her recipe; at least she had good sense to propose fresh yeast (a.k.a. compressed yeast) instead of cream of tartat and baking soda. I hope this cal help you to rectify your editorial beacause at the moment you are not doing a big favour to your fellow Italians and their excellent baking tradition.
Thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards,
Federico
Federeico, thank you for your note. I will certainly look into this and address the issue. If you have a good recipe, please send it to me. Thanks for reading! And merry Christmas.
Hi Edwin, if you want to publish a good panettone recipe, stick to the one written by Carol Field. She showed a great understanding of the Italian baking.
I believe you live in the US, so you shouldn’t have any problem to ask the authorization to publish her recipe. Her book (The Italian baker)publisher is HarperCollins New York.
I wish you all best and Merry Christmas.
Federico