A few months ago I finally decided to try making a panettone. I had previous experience with sourdough baking but panettone seemed scary... based on my research reading, watching different sources. So many steps that all seemingly needed to be controlled. That's probably why I didn't even try for a long time. I've never worked with enriched doughs so I made quite stupid mistakes that resulted in disaster (adding flour and sugar together, resulting in a destroyed gluten structure...) First few tries were definitely disasters, edible but more like cake then bread.
After a few disasters I thought I was getting it down, after kneading and shaping the dough looked right. Rising times for the 1st and 2nd dough were exactly right. The result was okayish... meaning it actually looked a little like a panettone at least right out the oven. It tended to collapse a bit after cooling even tough I turned it upside down.
I did more research and tried a few recipes, finally deciding on Roy's recipe, it just tasted by far the best. Even tough my panettone looked nothing like his. With Roy's recipe what tended to happen is this:
The oven rise was good until at some point the structure just collapsed...I tried it again and again. More kneading, a longer 2nd rise, using steam, using no steam, glazing, scoring. Nothing really helped. I thought the issue might be the acidity of my starter as I'm too lazy to create a separate one for panettone, I was just using my standard sourdough starter. Then I tried tweaking Roy's recipe, a little higher water-to-egg ratio, a little more flour. To hopefully increase the dough strength and avoid collapse. And it worked! I finally achieved something you would actually call a panettone. The oven-rise is not what I ideally would like but I have no ideas as how to increase that currently.
Jeff, I can't really help you much, but since no one has responded yet, I'll bump this back up for you.
... it actually looked a little like a panettone at least right out the oven. It tended to collapse a bit after cooling even tough I turned it upside down.
Maybe you didn't hang it long enough. Just cooling isn't enough, it needs to set and firm up before turning it upright which may take several hours. Overnight is what I do since I'm usually baking in the evening.
Even tough my panettone looked nothing like his. With Roy's recipe what tended to happen is this:
The oven rise was good until at some point the structure just collapsed...I tried it again and again. More kneading, a longer 2nd rise, using steam, using no steam, glazing, scoring. Nothing really helped.
Just making a guess here that maybe you're letting it rise too high in the final proofing, although that may not be the only issue. The starter may be problematic, or not enough sugar in one of the doughs combined with your changes. Someone else my jump in with a better idea.
But on the bright side, there is improvement in the last photo from the first :) Don't give up
We have all had problems in the early days of our panettone baking, so don’t worry.
It appears that you have an overly acidic lievito madre, as shown by the cakelike crumb.
Also, it looks like you are not getting much gluten development while mixing the first dough.
In the case of the LM, you should take some of your starter, here’s a simple way to improve it somewhat: mix it for 7 minutes at a 40% hydration (100g starter, 100g flour, 40g water), then form it into a coil and let it sit covered for 24 hours. Do that a number of times. See if you don’t have an improved LM.. If you see progress, then you can move to a more detailed approach.
For the gluten development, make sure you are using a high protein flour. Then at the first stage of the first dough, make sure you allow it to fully develop strong gluten web before adding sugar etc. So at the first step, where it is just flour and water, mix it very well until smooth and forming a stretchy windowpane. Then proceed to the next step.
Hope this helps, Sue