Pecan Apple Strudel Panettone

I recently received a 25 Kg bag of Pasini Millebolle panettone flour, and this was the first test. The panettone is a simple variation on my usual formula, meant to evoke a Danish pastry with pecan and apple. I added cardamom in addition to vanilla bean, plus a variety of inclusions totaling approximately the weight of flour in the recipe.

I maintain two lievito madre starters, one for Shokupan and one for Panettone. The panettone one is considerably older, and behaves differently in a number of ways. I am able to take it out of storage and have a highly active LM in two or three days, while the Shokupan starter is less aggressive but also more sugar tolerant. Here is the panettone LM on day two:

I am also finding that ambient fermentation works quite well while in maintenance mode on the LM. Just prior to a bake, one or two warm refreshes help establish the leavening characteristics that will go to work in the panettone process.

Recently I re-watched an interesting presentation by Michael Ganzle, where he discussed the competitive environment in SD starters, confirming the value of consistent, long-term refreshments. However for home bakers, this kind of continuous feeding is inconvenient and expensive, so finding cyclical equilibrium is important. This LM has become much more stable over the last year despite periods of refrigeration. It does oxidize and lose power if left more than two weeks in storage, but can be revived.

For the first dough, I used 3/4 panettone LM and 1/4 Shokupan LM. This was to try to help insure staying in a “safe” zone for pH  after the overnight fermentation. Other factors include hydration, temperature, and sugar saturation in the dough.

This dough stayed right on the trajectory and tripled in 12 hours.  Temperature was 23C until the last two hours, when I increased it to 26C. The pH was 4.79, which I have found is acceptable for my process. Dough was strong with lots of gluten development.

The Millebolle flour mixed very well and the second dough came together quickly. Since this was my first test, I was conservative with hydration, but I am confident that next time this can be increased. The dough handled extremely well at all stages, and rounded well in the pans.

The biggest surprise is how quickly the final rise went. It was under four hours, and actually rose a bit too much in the pans before baking, leading to some “mushrooming”. However, the loaves had dramatic oven spring, very satisfactory!

These are 1 Kg loaves in paper pans which are 6 5/8” in diameter. They are scaled at 1050g per loaf.

The loaves turned out light, high and moist, extremely shreddy, with delicate flavor and lots of pecans. 

I would recommend the Pasini Millebolle flour to anyone interested in brioche baking or other long fermentation baking. It has a noticeably greater strength than other flours I’ve used, while also being a good base for lievito madre.