First Moderately Successful SD Panettone

Let me say at the outset that I've been reading this site for nearly 20 years but never felt compelled to post anything until this week... I've also been baking professionally for a long time and never encountered a challenge quite like this... they don't call it the Mount Everest of baking for nothing!

I've made non-sourdough (read, inauthentic) panettoni before and been satisfied with them until last year, when I purchased a copy of Sourdough Panettone and Vienoisserie by Tefri-Chambelland just before New Year’s Eve, looked it over, and quickly put it back on the shelf. Damn that book is technical! 

November rolled around and I decided to give it another go, reading the book cover to cover (multiple times) before trying my hand. I built a pasta madre following the instructions from Eva's Blog which no doubt many are familiar with, and things went pretty smoothly despite some initial problems with temperature control in a “cozy” Brooklyn apartment. Once the weather cooled and our apartment regularly started dropping to 65 degrees at night things felt like they were taking off, with a slight hiccup somewhere around Thanksgiving when I switched from Caputo's Manitoba Oro to Petra 6384 flour. I also decided to switch from the water storage to the bound method at around the same time, because I was hoping to get away with keeping a smaller starter (the water method seems to require a larger feedings—at least 200g—and I wanted to stick to 100g for efficiency’s sake).

I tried baking with the starter for the first time about 3 weeks ago even though it was clearly not strong enough. I did the three preparatory warm refreshments and I knew a panettone would be out of the question so I chose a recipe from SPAV with fewer ingredients (Sourdough Brioche) and, as expected, it never rose. It came out of the oven more like an omelet than a bread. I pressed forward, this time doing 3 days of preparatory warm refreshments and decided to attempt another bake. I knew it was risky, but I decided to make a panettone this time, and chose a recipe from SPAV more or less at random. I built a little proof box out foam core and a seedling heating mat, but the 1st dough still failed to rise. I made the second dough anyway (I know) and... you know the drill.

I tucked the starter away in the fridge for a week to regroup, and when I brought it back out I proceeded with four days of warm refreshments before attempting another dough. Things were really going smoothly! The starter was consistently reaching a pH of 4.15 after about 3h 45m at 28C and nearly tripling in volume. It seemed like the stars were aligning.

This time I decided to take everyone's advice and use the Giorilli formula which is supposed to be very reliable and forgiving. The dough came together beautifully; the primo impasto has a higher hydration than the previous dough I had tried and so my Kitchenaid thanked me as well. I set it in the proofer at 25C.

Got up in the morning to.... nothing. At best, the dough had risen by about half, but it had only been about 8 hours and people say it can take 14 to 16, and 25C seemed cold compared to other recipes I'd read, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and bump the temperature up to 29C. Wouldn’t you know it, but the dough had tripled by 1pm! But, unfortunately, the pH had dropped to 3.6 and when I took the temp of the bottom of the container (which I had foolishly set directly on the heating pad in the proofing box) it was 32C.

The dough was a little sticky, but it still had a decent structure, so I once again threw caution to the wind and pressed forward. I had read that if your dough is too acidic it can be nearly impossible to incorporate the yolks and butter into the second dough but was pleasantly surprised at how easily it came together. The pH after mixing the second dough was unsurprisingly low at 4.8, but there was nothing to be done about that, so I divided it into two molds and set them back in the proofer at 28C, this time being sure to elevate them so they weren't in direct contact with the heating pad.

5 hours. 6 hours. 7 hours. Nada. The cool sheet pan and the mass of the dough had dropped the temp in the proof box when I put them in and the 40 watt heating element was having trouble getting the temp back up. Maybe the dough’s just too cold? I'll keep waiting. By 9pm we're finally up to 28 degrees, and the dough is nearly halfway up the molds. 10pm rolls around and I'm confident the dough could climb to the top of the mold if I gave it more time, but I'm losing steam. At 10:30 I decide to throw them in the oven. I tried to score the top of one, but the dough is sticky and soft so it didn’t bother scoring the second. I didn’t bother glazing them, either. 

I sat on the floor in front of the oven and watched them climb the top of the mold, so maybe all’s not lost. After about an hour of baking they had reached an internal temp of 200F, so I flipped them upside down to cool and headed to bed, not sure what I'd wake up to.  

To my surprise, they're not so bad! Under proofed sure, but soft and surprisingly not sour. I want to do better next time but this is exhausting! 

So what’s my path forward here… more warm refreshments? More purifications? Go back to the water storage? A better-insulated proofing box? Better luck next time? Would love to hear from the experienced panettieri here!