Fruity Panettone | BLOGMAS DAY 2

I’ve always wanted to make a panettone. I’ve always been intrigued as to how the fluffy texture is created. I do love to also eat panettone. Since my Husband’s side of the family are Italian, I’ve eaten a fair few, and some really good ones too! We always buy ours at Lidls because, being a supermarket that specialise in goods from Europe, they usually do a really good one, and at a good price. However this year, as I’ve decided to do Blogmas, I thought i’d try and make some of my bakes Italian themed. So i’m starting off with the bake most people think of when they think of Christmas in Italy, and that’s this rum-soaked fruit, topped with almonds, Panettone. The recipe is from the BBC website however I’ve adapted it very slightly.

Ingredients

The Cake
4 tbsp warm, semi-skimmed milk
2 x 7g satchets of fast-action dried yeast
100g caster sugar
250g salted butter, softened
5 medium eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
500g strong white bread flour + extra for dusting
80g raisins
80g sultanas
3 tbsp dark rum
100g candied peel

The Topping
30g almonds, roughly chopped
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp egg white
1 tbsp icing sugar

You will also need a 16cm panettone tin.

The Method

1. Grease your panettone tin with butter. I chose to use this Ibili one from Amazon. You can also use a deep cake tin.

2. Heat t he milk until warm and pour into a bowl. Add the yeast and 1 tsp of the sugar. Give it a little stir and leave for 5 minutes. Mine began to foam quite a lot, so I knew that it was definitely an active yeast! Make sure yours does too.

3. In a mixing bowl, add the remaining sugar, softened butter and vanilla extract. Beat together until light and fluffy.

Of course I chose Cornish butter!

4. Stir in the grated lemon and orange zest. Lightly beat the eggs and slowly incorporate into the butter mix. Don’t worry if it begins to curdle. A LOT of people say to add flour but this just thicken the mixture and masks the curdle. The curdle doesn’t matter. It will sort itself out during the baking, so don’t worry about it. It’s only due to the butter and eggs being at different temperatures.

This is pre-eggs

5. Pour the flour into a bowl and make a well. Add the yeast and then the butter mix. Stir in slowly with a wooden spoon to create a dough. Knead for 5 minutes in the bowl until it becomes a dough.

6. Tip the dough onto a floured surface and knead for a further 10 minutes. Your dough should be soft and stretchy. Lightly grease a bowl to put your dough in. Wrap lightly with cling film and place in a warm place for 2 hours until doubled in size.

7. Meanwhile, weigh the raisins and sultanas into a small pan and add the rum. Heat on a slow heat until the rum has been absorbed by the fruit. Set aside to cool.

8. Once the dough has risen, tip onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes more. Gradually knead in the fruit, as well as the candied peel.

9. Shape the dough into a ball and pop into your tin. As my tin was slightly smaller than the BBC recipe tin, I wrapped some baking paper around the tin with string, to ensure the dough can rise safely without toppling over. You can do the same if you’re using a deep cake tin. Or you can use a 20cm one like in the BBC recipe.
Cover with cling film and rise in a warm place for another hour, until risen to the top of the tin or paper.

9. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees for fan. Mix together the almonds, caster sugar, icing sugar and egg white (the topping ingredients). Brush gently over the panettone, ensuring you get some of the almonds on there too.

10. Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes, until golden brown on top and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Mine actually took about an 1 hour and 5 minutes, so don’t worry if yours does too. Just keep checking if it’s cooked and bake until it is.

11. Once golden and cooked, cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Once cool, lightly dust with icing sugar and serve by cutting into wedges!