Holiday Panettone
Every year at Grand Central Bakery we try to outdo ourselves with our Panettone. Mel Darbyshire, GCB Portland Head Baker, shares her thoughts and methods for her version of this amazing holiday treat.
Panettone Queen, Mel Darbyshire
First, a little history. Panettone is classic Italian bread produced for Christmas and New Year originating from Milan. History claims this cake appeared in ancient Rome, as sweetened leavened bread with honey. The word "panettone" is derived form the Italian word "panetto" small loaf bread. The augmentative suffix "one" changes the meaning to large bread. The Italian baker Angelo Motta revolutionized this bread by creating Panettone's signature tall domed structure and light texture with a long, slow ferment. A legend about the name "Panettone" describes a 15th century love affair in which a nobleman falconer falls in love with the daughter of a baker "toni". He disguises himself as a baker and creates this marvelous bread. The Duke of Milan approves their marriage and encourages the production of the new bread "pan de toni" meaning "bread of toni".
The Panettone formula this year is the same as last, because it was just so good. Grand Central's Fremont pastry crew made some amazing candied fruit again for us bread bakers. This really adds a nice depth of flavour that you cannot get from the commercially produced candied fruit.
Panettone Elves
Our Panettone is naturally leavened with no commercial yeast in the formula. A levain is made using our sour white culture. Once this levain is fermented, it is added to the first dough - a combination of flour, water, sugar, levain butter & egg yolks that is allowed to ferment for 12 hours at room temperature. The first dough is an important step we used this year to add complexity of flavour to the loaf and enabled us to omit using commercial yeast.
Beautiful interior!
The final mix is what makes this year's panettone better than ever in regards to overall crumb structure and texture. It's a 4-step process that allows for us to get full gluten development in a short amount of mixing (reducing oxidation) which improves flavour, but still allows high hydration dough that facilitates good structure, shelf life, dough extensibility etc.
1) The first step is incorporating the first dough with the remaining flour and vanilla extract. Over-mixing is a pit-fall here and we're extremely careful!
2) Next we add the salt, remaining egg yolks, sugar and some water to help with incorporation. Once the dough comes back together you get the butter in there. Soft butter is important as it incorporates easily and allows one to maintain you gluten development without over-mixing.
3) Next we incorporate the honey and the final water is added.
4) As soon as the dough pulls back together we then incorporate all of the luscious hand-candied fruit.
Final Dough
The benefits of this process are the ability to get maximum gluten development which gives strength to the dough and the final cell structure without having to compromise on hydration or fat incorporation. It takes a keen eye to make sure each step is adequately mixed so the other ingredients can be incorporated without over-mixing...
Panettone dough in the forms.
Once formed, the Panettone again sits for 10-12 hours for a long, slow cool proof. It is this mixing process, plus the length of the overall fermentation that gives our panettone its complex flavour, delightful texture and incredible shelf life.
Panettone toppings...
Last, but not least comes the glaze - egg whites, almond meal, cocoa powder, grain sugar and sliced almonds.
Hanging Panettone
Baked to a beautiful dark perfection, the traditional Panettone is hung upside down to cool. The reason for this is to preserve all of the beautiful cell structure developed during the mixing process. It also insures that the panettone does not collapse during cooling. Although we are currently unable to hang all of our panettone due to the high volume we produce, we are able to hang a good percentage of them. Santa? Are you there? Please build me a custom rack to hang all of my precious Panettone!
Ingredients: levain (sour starter flour water), flour, water, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, honey, butter (lots!), salt, golden and dark raisins and candied orange and lemon.
Posted by Mel Darbyshire, Grand Central Bakery Head Baker / Portland
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