Pandoro! (Glezer-Artisan Baking)

I wanted to make a practice Pandoro for Easter.  It came out GREAT--and was simpler than I expected!  I used the recipe in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.  I followed almost every direction to the letter (except shaping).  I used KAF Lancelot flour (14% protein) and SAF Gold yeast (along w/ SD starter).  I always have cocoa butter on hand, so that wasn't a problem.  I did use salted butter (unsalted is specified), so did not add any additional salt (the recipe uses a lot of butter!)

Here's a pic of my "Primo Impasto"--the first stage dough, after it had quadrupled (rubber band shows starting point)

For the "Secondo Impasto" (second dough), melted butter is whipped with melted cocoa butter and incorporated with eggs and sugar, flour and the first dough.  Whipping makes incorporation of the butter into the dough much easier--I had no trouble at all with the dough.  The recipe has a bunch of eggs.  I do wonder how the dough can sit out for 12 hours with all those raw eggs in it?  Anyway...it took about 45 min of mixing for the dough to be ready for the molds. The molds need to be very carefully prepared with melted butter and dusted with flour.  The taste of the dough was very interesting...like weightless silk on my tounge.  The recipe talks about shaping the dough before putting it in the mold.  I could not imagine trying to shape the dough--it was just long loose strands of butter and gluten, so I just "poured" it into my molds.  That seemed to work just great.  Then the dough ferments in the molds for 12 hours.  Following the timing schedule in the book is a good idea....but it meant getting up at 5:00 am to bake the bread. 

Here's a pic of dough in the mold.  I bought the Pandoro mold at Amazon. 

Here's a pic at 5:00 am after 12 hours of ferment time (yes...I got up at 5:00 am to check them!)  As I stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen, I was greeted with an incredible sweet yeast scent. 

Here's after baking--must cool 30 min before unmolding

Unmolded

Crumb.  The taste is so good!  Delicate, not too sweet, melt-in-your-mouth.  A lot like yellow cake for adults!