SueVT's blog

This batch of caramel apple penettone is the most successful to date - 18 cm high, 1000g exactly. This is the Roy recipe, which is a lower egg yolk formula. My lievito madre has been out of storage for about two weeks.

For the first week, I fed the LM only once a day at 1:1:.40, keeping it at room temp for 12 hours and refrigerated for 12 hours. I found that this had the tendency to increase acidity very slowly, moving me toward target. 

Every time I bake panettone, I try to build on what has worked, what I've learned, and new things I want to try out.

This bake is caramel apple; the result is very satisfying: moist, delicate, shreddable, flavored with spices, caramel bits and apple. No off-flavors or acidity. 

Panettone can be made is a wide variety of flavors, not just the classic raisins and candied orange peel. In this case, I used apple chunks, caramel bits, and cider donut spices, which combine beautifully with the light buttery and fermentation notes of the panettone.

Still working away at my panettone here in the VT wilderness. I've adopted a consistent twice-daily feeding process for my Lievito Madre, and have made other adjustments in dough handling, pH measurements, proofing temperature, and baking process.

I am now seeing significantly more alveolation in the loaves, so apparently all of these things are contributing factors. 

This is the Candied Strawberry Chocolate Caramel panettone.  Here is a side-by-side with my bake of two weeks ago, the new bake is the top row:

Adapted from Schvartzapel's recipe in Chambelland.

I've added candied strawberries, Valrhona caramel chocolate, and caramel chunks, 

Red, White and almost Blue!

Really a delicious combination, and a pretty satisfying bake. The white chocolate chips mostly melt into the crumb, give an overall cocoa-buttery richness that goes well with the cherries. I guessed at amounts, next time will double the add-ins.

Made my latest batch of panettone using the Roy recipe from Chambelland's Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie. This is my third attempt, and my first successful attempt, with this recipe. It succeeded very nicely this time, producing a remarkably moist, light, delicate and springy result. 

Fine tuning this bake will perhaps include slight modifications to the second impasto mixing process. This recipe is different from most, in that it includes both yolks and water added after the butter. This is like lightening an emulsion; it made me think of baking mayonnaise. 

In my quest to make a perfect, consistent, large miche (~2kg), I have made a slow transition from partially yeasted to my current formula, which is sourdough only, 80% hydration. I'm learning that different flours behave very differently, and many of my experiments have resulted in mud, pancake-flat loaves, giant air chambers, flying saucers etc.