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I've done 25 panettone bakes this year, according to my records! How the time, and panettone, flies. Looking back on the year, I've studied, taken classes, tried numerous techniques affecting each stage of product. There have been successes and a few (thankfully) failures, bright ideas and "Oops" moments. 

I've learned from some of the best people in the business. They've been incredibly kind and helpful, as most panettone bakers are. We've all had the same struggles, and share the same goal. We all know how hard it is. I am inspired by all of them, and even more inspired by the people who are just starting out with panettone, who dream of that succulent, feathery crumb, and are willing to do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, to get it. 

Panettone is much more than a recipe; it's a system, a collection of interlinked processes with numerous interdependencies. But this difficulty also makes it very interesting.

This coming year, I hope that more people will try baking panettone, remembering that it will take a while to get positive results  😊

Happy Holidays!  --Sue

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My first bake since returning home for us, although I made two, one is for a present.  We love seeds and nuts in bread so wanted to have a nutty bread.  I toasted the walnuts and also used toasted walnut oil in lieu of butter to maximize the nutty flavour.  I also last minute decided to top the loaves with black sesame seeds because why not!  I usually weigh the dough when I divide, this time I did not and obviously didn’t do a good job by eye LOL.

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For one 9x4x4” Pullman pan loaf.

Instructions

Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

Press down with your knuckles or silicone spatula to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At a temperature of 76-78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.  For my starter I typically see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak.  The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.

Tangzhong 

In a sauce pan set on medium heat, stir the milk and whole red fife flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.  Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature.  You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it, ensure that it is covered to prevent it from drying out.

If you plan on using a stand mixer to mix this dough, set up a Bain Marie and use your stand mixer’s bowl to prepare the tangzhong.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10 g of milk and adding later if this is the first time you’re making this), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into many smaller pieces.  Next add the flour.  I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren’t many dry areas.  Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes.  Mix on low speed and then medium speed until moderate gluten development this may take 5-10 mins.  You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl during the first 5 minutes of mixing.  Next drizzle in the walnut oil a bit at a time.  The dough may come apart, be patient, continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more oil.  Again, knead until well incorporated.  You will want to check gluten development by windowpane during this time and stop mixing when you get a good windowpane.  You should be able to pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.  Finally add the walnuts and mix until evenly incorporated.

On the counter, shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 3 - 4 hours at 82ºF.  There should be some rise visible at this stage.

You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier to shape.  Remember, if you do so the final proof will take longer.  Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight, however, you may find that this increases the tang in your bread.

Prepare your pans by greasing them with butter or line with parchment paper.  

Lightly oil the top of the dough. Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top and shape into a batard.  Place into your prepared pan.

Cover and let proof for  4-6 hours at a warm temperature.  I proof at 82°F.  You will need longer than 4-6 hours if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash.  Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF.

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My index of bakes.

We bought a lot of Turkish black olives last week and I thought finally it's time to bake olive bread.

It came out super well, so I decided to share the bake here. Dough is more or less 50/50 ruchmehl (Swiss high extraction flour) and white flour, but I didn't write down the exact proportions. Total flour weight, including 50 g of prefermented whole rye from the starter, is 450 g. Not too high hydration, in the 70% range, but also with additional liquid from the olives (around 80g after pitting), and a glug of olive oil. Since the olives are salty, I reduced the salt a little, 8 g instead of the usual 10g. After adding the olives the dough got much darker and acquired some pretty dark purple streaks, which came out beautifully in the final crumb. Did some typical stretch and folds etc, after a few hours it seemed the dough was ready, so I shaped it and final proofed mainly on the balcony, where I suspect the temperature is a little higher than the fridge at the moment, so the fermentation doesn't stop completely, but progresses very slowly. It rose somewhat, and next day I baked it with steam.

Bread came out crunchy on the outside, not too fluffy, but very soft inside, and very tasty. Actually amazing to eat with some more olive oil.

I love how artisan bread gives you the opportunity to do something creative with your scoring. I think Santa is my favorite—he got the full glamour shot treatment! 🎅🏻 

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First post!! 

I'm so excited to have found a cool community where I can talk/read about baking bread without an algorithm to decide to put other random crap in front of my face.

Anyhoo!

I use a pretty basic sandwich bread recipe for pretty much all the bread I've ever made

Warm water and honey to bloom the dry active yeast

Butter, flour, salt to form the dough. 

This time around, I made a loaf with a swirl of bacon bits and shredded cheese! It was a massive hit and we used it to make breakfast sandwiches the next day. 

From this same batch, I made a parmesan flake swirl loaf as well. Whenever I make this recipe, I tend to do one plain loaf and one with inclusions. The parmesan loaf was for our dinner tonight, toasted and dipped in French onion soup. YUM. 

I'm working on bringing up a starter from scratch right now, I'm on day four! Can't wait to make some tasty sourdough loaves, hopefully I can give it a couple tries and get to a point where I'm satisfied gifting a loaf or two for Christmas to my husband's family. I have no expectations of truly getting the hang of it that quickly, though, so call this a reach goal 🤣

So I needed to bake more presents and planned to repeat my star shaped bake, but last minute decided to use a more traditional rolled bun shaping.  I also made some creamed cheese icing to top these.  My partner and I got to quality control this bake as I cut one bun out and can report that they are quite yummy.  although you definitely get the cinnamon, the ginger carries through the finish.  As expected, the crumb is fluffy, shreddable and so soft.  I’ll keep this recipe for another Christmas to bake again.

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Ingredients

3¾ to 4¼ cups all-purpose flour 480 g (4 cups)

4 tsp. ground ginger

4 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground cloves

1 pkg. active dry yeast (1 ¾  tsp. IDY or about 4.9 g)(if use osmotolerant yeast then can ferment a bit faster.)

¾ cup milk (184 g)

1 cup plain mashed potato

⅓ cup butter (76 g)

⅓ cup molasses (93.3 g)

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter, melted

Powdered sugar (optional)

HANDS ON 30 min.
RISE 1 hour 15 min.
REST 10 min.
BAKE 20 min. at 375°F

1. In a large bowl stir together 480 g flour, 3 tsp. of the ginger, 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, ¼ tsp. of the cloves, and the yeast. In the bowl of your mixer stir milk, mashed potato, ⅓ cup melted butter, the molasses, eggs and salt. Add flour mixture to the liquid mixture. Mix until gluten is well developed.

2. Turn dough out onto and shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise until doubled in size (60 to 120 minutes).  Can do a cold retard at this point.

3. Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Lightly grease a 13×9-inch baking pan. Prepare filling in a small bowl stir together the brown sugar and remaining 1 tsp. ginger, 3 tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ tsp. cloves. 

4. Roll dough into an 18×12-inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter and sprinkle with filling, leaving 1 inch unfilled along one of the long sides. Roll up tightly, starting from filled long side and pinching seam to seal. Cut into 12 slices; arrange in pan. Cover; let rise until nearly double in size (30 minutes).

5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Invert to remove from pan; invert rolls again onto a platter. Spread with Cream Cheese Frosting. Makes 12 rolls.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

In a medium bowl beat 3 oz. (85 g) softened cream cheese, 2 Tbsp. softened butter, and 1 tsp. vanilla with a mixer on medium until combined. Gradually beat in 2½ cups powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in enough milk, 1 tsp. at a time, to reach spreading consistency.  Next time add some lemon juice to make it tangier and can probably skip the extra milk.  Say about 2 tsp lemon juice.

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My index of bakes

I’ve wanted to make a bread done with this star shaping for quite sometime so decided that Christmas baking was the perfect time to try it out.  It is fun and pretty easy overall to do.  Because I needed this to be done fairly quickly I didn’t convert this recipe to sourdough and instead just used IDY.

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Makes 2 stars (8 servings each) or 12 rolls.  

Ingredients

3¾ to 4¼ cups all-purpose flour 480 g (4 cups)

4 tsp. ground ginger

4 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground cloves

1 pkg. active dry yeast (1 ¾  tsp. IDY or about 4.9 g)

¾ cup milk (184 g)

1 cup plain mashed potato

⅓ cup butter (76 g)

⅓ cup molasses (93.3 g)

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter, melted

Powdered sugar (optional)

HANDS ON 30 min.
RISE 1 hour 15 min.
REST 10 min.
BAKE 20 min. at 375°F

1. In a large bowl stir together 480 g flour, 3 tsp. of the ginger, 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, ¼ tsp. of the cloves, and the yeast. In the bowl of your mixer stir milk, mashed potato, ⅓ cup melted butter, the molasses, eggs and salt. Add flour mixture to the liquid mixture. Mix until gluten is well developed.

2. Turn dough out onto and shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise until doubled in size (60 to 120 minutes).  Can do a cold retard at this point.

3. Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into eight equal portions. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

4. For filling, in a small bowl stir together the brown sugar and remaining 1 tsp. ginger, 3 tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ tsp. cloves.

5. For each star, on a lightly oiled surface roll one portion of dough into a 10-inch round. Place on a prepared sheet. Brush with some of the ¼ cup melted butter. Sprinkle with a slightly rounded Tbsp. of the filling. Repeat two times, stacking rounds. Top with another dough round for a total of four. Brush with melted butter. Place a 2½-inch round cutter in the center of the dough stack, making a slight indent. Use a sharp knife to cut 16 strips, cutting from the cutter to the edge of the stack. Gently twist one of the strips two times. For the strip next to it, twist the strip in the opposite direction. Repeat to make eight arms to the star. Remove cutter. Repeat with remaining four dough rounds and filling. Let rise until nearly double in size (about 30-60 minutes); brush with additional melted butter.

6. Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake 20 minutes or until golden. Once cooled on a rack, dust with powdered sugar (if using). Makes 2 stars (8 servings each).

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I haven’t eaten this yet so cannot report back on my personal experience with it.  However, everyone who has tried has raved about it.  I still have a couple more of these to bake so perhaps I’ll have a chance to actually eat some.

My index of bakes.

Formula:

* Additional flavourings were added: After mixing the primo impasto, honey from the recipe was mixed with vanilla, lemon zest and a splash of dark rum. This was left to infuse overnight before being mixed into the emulsion the following day.

✝  A splash of milk (UK: Semi skimmed) was added to 4 whole eggs (UK: large) to make up the desired weight of 236g.

✝✝ Cocoa butter was substituted with quality white chocolate.

Method:

Per il primo impasto, begin by mixing the flour with the leaven and almost all the eggs. When the dough becomes smooth, add the remaining eggs. After a few minutes incorporate the sugar, the salt and the lastly the butter. Let it rise at 25-26C for around 12 hours or when it reaches triple the volume.

Per il secondo impasto, mix half of the first dough with the flour and the malt. When the dough becomes smooth add the other half, the salt and lastly the egg yolks, a little at a time. When the dough is elastic and homogenous incorporate the emulsion, prepared in advance by creaming the butter with sugar and amalgamating well the other ingredients. Finish the mix adjusting the consistency with the fresh cream.

Transfer to a container and let rest for around 30 minutes at 28C. After this time, scale pieces of the desired weight, shape into a boule and place on butter boards and hold them at 28C for around 60 minutes. Shape and place in the moulds. Allow to rise at 28-30C for around 6 hours or until the dough reaches the edges of the mould.

Baking times:

500g: 30 minutes at 170C
750g: 40 minutes at 170C
1000g: 50 minutes at 170C

Remove from the oven and let the pandoro cool for around 60 minutes before removing from the mould. 
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LM - Not fully tripled but pleasant alcohol aromas within.

Primo Impasto - After12 hours the primo impasto more than tripled in volume!

The leavening power of my lievito madre is proving very potent. However acidity issues persist. Primo impasto pH: Initial: 6.27 End: 4.21. It just goes to show that simply pushing the yeast potency is not enough to mitigate acidification.

The risen primo impasto had quite a strong acetic aroma emanating from it while on the counter, however the taste was very different and tasted completely non-sour with just a very pleasant carbonic fizz.

The final mix was relatively easy to do and went without issue. By the end of the mix the finished dough was supple and elastic and when removed from the mixing bowl was a very extensible and relaxed to cover a large part of the counter. pH = 4.5 (too low - should be >5).

I rounded the dough a couple of times during the rest period to encourage it to hold a higher form before performing the final round and placing into the pandoro mould.


Finished dough - After mix rest then rounded (pagnottella)

Finished dough moulded

Fully proofed

The proof was done at a slightly lower temperature of 24-25C than the 28-30 prescribed. Proof time 9 hours instead of 6 but that's about right considering the temperature difference.

Baked

Just in time for Christmas, I wanted to get a Holiday bread bake in before the festive season began. It's been years since I baked a Pandoro and I'm glad I did. Being less dicey than Panettone since it doesn't require hanging which can be make or break!

Happy Christmas all.

Michael

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!

Please see here and here to learn more about concentrated lactic acid sourdough (CLAS). 

I've been mulling over what to do with that hefty 50-pound bag of durum berries I stowed away during the pandemic. Noodle-making was my go-to, but it became a chore after a while. I even considered buying a noodle machine for convenience: the kind that extrudes noodles once you add all the ingredients, but guess what? Nature stepped in and saved me the trouble—bugs invaded the bag, and that was it for my durum berries. Here's the final loaf I made totally clueless about those bugs:

Ingredients:

Pre-dough

Prepare a puree with

23% milk

46% overripe bananas

95% fresh whole durum flour ground in the Vitamix

5% whole durum flour from durum CLAS

7.5% water from durum CLAS

17% egg

0.2% gold yeast

mix until a moist dough forms; do not overmix

28C x 240mins using Zo's "Rise 1"

Dough

predough

0.5% gold yeast

1.5% salt

1.5% ground cinnamon

10% butter

mix until incorporated, then 

38% toasted mix of 

walnuts

hazelnuts

almonds

pecans

38% craisins 

mix in extra banana-milk puree if needed

Total dough weight: ~750g

for a 19cm x 11cm x 8.5cm tin with a lid (holds 1000ml)

Bulk

using Zo's "Rise 3"

38C x 50mins

Shape

place the dough into the tin lined with parchment slings

smooth the top with a spatula (optional)

Prove

using Zo's "Rise 3"

38C x 40mins

Bake

using the 6Q Instant Vortex Clear Cook Air Fryer

line parchment paper on top of the dough

close the lid

375Fx10mins

350Fx15mins

flip

350Fx10mins

click to enlarge

 Ithat I can bake two loaves in the air fryer at once whenever I feel like it.

Enjoy it the ball-law-yau style

I have another 100% durum bread, but this time it's made with refined, extra fancy durum flour.