Panettone

A few weeks ago, my friend Jenn of Knitty Baker, and I decided to do a little baking project together. We came up with the idea to make Panettone, an Italian yeast bread, that's studded with dried fruit and is lightly sweetened. Neither one of us had made Panettone before, so we were pretty excited about it. Jenn chose a recipe from AllRecipes.com. It had high ratings and the recipe had weight measurements. Perfect!

Panettone baked in a Bundt cake! Que bella :o)

After reading some of the reviews, I decided to follow some of the recommended changes and to make some of my own (surprise, surprise!). As usual, I used my bread machine to make the yeast dough. After the first rise, I folded in the dried fruit and shaped it into a coil for its second rise in my Bundt pan.

Getting ready for the second rise.

Second rise is done (45 min for me). Ready for the oven.

After a 30 minute visit to the oven, it was done.

Golden brown and delicious!

I let it cool in the pan for a few minutes and then inverted it.

Ta-dah!

Apparently, I didn't do a good job at evenly distributing the dried fruit in the Panettone, because some slices had more fruit than others. The picture below at least shows the soft and light interior of the bread :o)

A lovely lemon-scented slice of Panettone. Buon appetito!

Here's the adapted ingredients list:
(adapted from AllRecipes)

• 7 gr instant yeast
• 230 gr lukewarm water
• 100 gr granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 130 gr sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 23 gr non-fat dry milk powder
• 1/4 tsp LorAnn lemon oil
• 6 gr salt
• 425 gr unbleached bread flour
• 125 gr white whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp golden flax seeds, finely ground
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 40 gr dark raisins
• 40 gr golden raisins
• 40 gr dried cranberries

Combine all the ingredients, except the dried fruit, in the bread machine and run the dough cycle. I kept the dough pretty sticky. After it has completed the first rise, follow the directions in the original recipe. Note: during the second rise, I let it go until it was doubled in size which took 45 minute. The original recipe instructs you let it rise for 30 minutes only, which I didn't think was enough.

Final thoughts/tips:

• I liked this bread. The aroma from the lemon oil was wonderful, although next time I'd add lemon or orange zest to it for even more flavor. Although I tripled the amount of dried fruit, I didn't think it was enough. I would definitely double my amount next time. I love light and fluffy the bread's interior was. Not dense at all.
• This recipe makes a pretty big loaf. I took it to work where it was a big hit. One person told me it reminded them of their grandmother's Babka and Challah with Raisins :o)
• Instead of an 8" round pan, I used a Bundt pan. It was very pretty. I loved how tall each slice was.
• Although this bread was great as-is, it was even better when lightly toasted and schmeared with a little butter. It reminded me of a childhood favorite, Krentenbrood (raisin/currant bread).
• I'm submitting this post to Yeastspotting! :o)