Started my test batch of Panettone for this year. Will be making a dozen loaves in 2 weeks, but moving on from the Berenbaum formula. After many rave reviews here (and a no-chestnut batch last winter), I am using an adaptaion of Suas's Panettone. For those who want to play around with it, I make a google sheet for my final calculations, which you can find here: Panettone 2017
2 real changes from the formula as written:
- Candied chestnuts, instead of raisins
- Real Fiori di Sicilia instead of Vanilla bean + orange zest (used ~1tsp / loaf)
One of the things I always have trouble with is determining how much dough should go into one of the panettone papers. They're all slightly different sizes, and I've never found a good reference. This formula recommends 500g of dough into a specific mold size, so I scaled it by cylinder volume... which works well up until I add the chestnuts, which I find to be denser than raisins, so I added an extra 100g to account for that. We'll see how it works.
After mixing, final dough looking like good pannettone dough... windowpanes itself on the dough scraper, super moist & fatty.
Will have a crumb-cut tomorrow after the test batch cools. Everything went well, but I'm going to have to be very careful to see how I can fit 6 of them into my (new) oven at once. Either that, or find a way to retard 3 loaves by an hour so I can bake off 2 batches in one day.
This is the only formula I've made that I can actually SEE the loaves start deflating the moment they come out of the oven. Have to work fast to get them inverted. How to Cool 12 loaves? Got a tip from a blog somewhere... clothes rack has plenty of space!
Full pictures here, if interested.
I like what you've set up with the washing line.
Looks good and looking forward to the crumb shot.
Delinquint in getting this posted....
Crumb shot from the test batch:
The home-made candied citrus was a little overpowering in this batch, so I reduced it in the final batch. Just finished getting the first 6 loaves done. More pictures at the google link from above, but: