Monday, November 28, 2022

The classic panettone with sourdough: the traditional recipe




Panettone is certainly one of the sweets symbols of Christmas.

The panettone is very soft and fragrant. What a satisfaction to prepare Christmas panettone at home. This recipe is a guarantee. To do good things, it takes time. I do not want to deceive you into believing that it is an easy dessert to prepare, nor do I want to pull the wool over your eyes by deluding you that it is a quick dessert. But among all the recipes of Christmas sweets, the panettone is probably the most famous in the world and showing off on your tables a homemade panettone with the recipe of a great Master Pastry Chef in my opinion has no equal!

Ingredients
I° dough:
60 g Sour dough (active, 3h after refreshment)
75 g Sugar
80 g Water (at ambient temp)
85 g Yolks
85 g Butter
240 g Flour
 
II° dough
all the First Dough
60 g Flour 
60 g Sugar
80 g Yolks
90 g Butter
40 g Water
5 g Salt
all Aromatic mix for panettone
120 g raisins
90 g Candied orange (diced)
30 g Candied cedar (diced)

Preparation
Preparation of raisins. Soak the raisins in hot water for 30 minutes, then rinse and squeeze them well. Soak the raisins again in warm water for 5 hours. Squeeze them and place them in a baking tray lined with a dry and clean cloth. Cover with another cloth and let the raisins rest until the next day. Refresh the sourdough. After 2 hours, refresh the sourdough again. Prepare the aromatic mix for panettone. Combine all the ingredients together and let them rest for 24 hours before using them, in this way they will have time to mature and therefore to give more flavor to the panettone. Proceed to the preparation of the first dough. Mount the hook to the mixer. In the bowl of the stand mixer combine granulated sugar, flour and water. Work the mixture until you get a smooth and homogeneous dough (if you do not succeed with the hook, work the mixture with a whisk). At this point add the soft butter little by little (do not add more butter until the butter previously inserted has not been completely absorbed by the dough), also add the 40 g of yolks little by little. Work for a few more minutes, then add the sourdough and 45 g of egg yolks little by little. When all the yolks have been absorbed, replace the whisk with the hook and work the dough with the hook until you have obtained a smooth, elastic and homogeneous dough. To be sure that it is stringed, pull the dough, if it breaks it means that it is not ready, if pulling it forms a veil means that the dough is stringed. The dough could take up to 30-45 minutes to be processed. During this time make sure that the dough does not overheat. If too much heat is released, place the dough in the freezer for 10 minutes before continuing to knead. When the dough is well stringed, turn it over on the work surface. Remove a small piece of dough and keep it aside (it will be used to check the progress of leavening). At this point you have to pirate the dough. After pirating, place the dough in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until it has tripled its volume. To understand when the volume is tripled, look at the piece previously detached from the dough: this piece is also leavened by placing it in a glass with straight edges and the height level of this piece is marked on the glass; Then this little piece is also covered with film. When, looking at the glass, you will notice that the piece has tripled its volume then even the dough will have reached the same leavening. The time taken for this to happen is around 8-12-15 hours depending on the temperature of the room in which it is left to rise and the degree of activity of the sourdough used. Remove the butter from the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature. If the dough has not tripled its volume, wait until it has risen completely. If the dough has tripled its volume, proceed as follows. 

(Pirating is the process by which the leavened dough is given a regular shape. It is a method that is used both with doughs leavened with brewer's yeast and with dough leavened with sourdough. It serves to prevent the leavened during leavening from rising in an uneven manner.)

Preparation II° dough. 
Pour the first dough, the aromatic mix and the flour into the bowl of the stand mixer. Operate the stand mixer at minimum speed and knead the dough with the hook until all the ingredients have been absorbed by the dough itself. Already at this stage the dough will turn out as a single mass around the hook. Increase to speed 1 and work a little more. Add the sugar little by little (do not add more sugar until the previously poured sugar has been completely absorbed). Then add 30 g of egg yolks and let them absorb well from the dough. Then incorporate 30 g of egg yolks and salt and let it absorb once again from the dough. Add the soft butter several times, always without adding more butter if the previous one has not been absorbed.

Incorporate 20 g of egg yolks and knead until completely absorbed.
Then insert the water and knead for another 5-10 minutes. Then add the raisins and candied fruit and knead the dough again until it has completely absorbed the latter inside. The dough thus obtained will be shiny, soft and with a velvety consistency that does not remain attached to the hands. Then turn the dough upside down on the work surface and let it stand for 15 minutes. Pirating the dough and let it rest for another 15 minutes. Pirate again and place the dough in the appropriate panettone mold resting in a baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise at a temperature of 28-30 ° C until it has reached 2 centimeters below the edge (it may take up to 12-18 hours). At this point, remove the plastic wrap and let the panettone rest until a thin crust has formed on the surface (it will take 2-3 hours depending on the climate of the room). Cut the crust in the central part forming a cross (use a sharp knife) and deposit a knob of butter in the center.

Bake the panettone in a preheated oven at 165°C in the lower part of the oven. Cook for about 50-55 minutes. If you have a thermometer, check the internal temperature and take it out of the oven when the temperature at the heart of the panettone will be 94 ° C. Take the panettone out of the oven, stick it with irons (the wool needles are also fine) and turn it upside down and leave it upside down for a couple of hours. Then remove the irons from the panettone and let it cool completely (even overnight, if desired) before closing it in an envelope such as those for the freezer or in a large airtight container.

 

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