I have to admit, it was a little strange making a traditional Christmas bread during Halloween. But when we committed to baking through a entire bread book, one recipe at a time, in order, those of us in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge knew we were in for some odd timing.
I also have to admit is that in all my time in Italy, I never once ate Panettone. In my defense, I spent some summers there, and Panettone is not a summer bread. I was also there on quick trips at other times of the year, but I didn’t notice Panettone then, either. Even if I had, I would have most likely run screaming in the opposite direction. Because it looks like fruitcake.
My father loved fruitcake. That meant we had it in the house once a year, where upon I studied it with curiosity. Seriously, there are few things as nasty to me as neon-colored pieces of candied fruit. I still don’t get it. I even despise maraschino cherries. I have memories of pulling at the almost-caramelized bottoms of fruitcake slices, eating the darkly sweet and chewy liquor-soaked cake and nuts, marveling at the exotic flavor. But the rest of the fruitcake slice went directly in the trash, along with any candied fruit bit that had dared come close to the bottom of the cake.
So you can guess how excited I was to make a bread that looked like fruitcake. Thankfully, Peter Reinhart, in a sidebar note, lets you know you can use dried fruit in this bread. “Feel free to make a substitution if you prefer.” Well, good, I thought, because that’s the only way I’m going near this bread! I used a mixture of golden raisins, and dried apples, sour cherries, cranberries, and unsulphured apricots. Which then got soaked in whiskey overnight. And Fiori di Sicilia and lemon extracts. Pretty intriguing stuff.
Then there’s the fact that this bread starts with a wild-yeast sponge. I won’t go into too many details, because it would make most of my readers want to jump off a bridge. The short version is that you make a sourdough starter (I’ve kept mine going since June), and you mix a little of that with some milk and more flour, and you let it sit until the wild-yeast makes it bubbly. And then you pop that in the fridge overnight.
The next day, you drive yourself a little crazy, trying to get just the right amount of flour into a rather wet and very sticky dough that you’ve made with that sponge and some butter, eggs, sugar, yeast, and flour. Once you think you’ve got it, you dump the dough out onto the counter, where it sticks to everything, and you attempt to add a ton of liquor-soaked fruit and a whole lot of almonds. Which does absolutely nothing to alleviate the sticky problem. Because the dough is so sticky, in spite of all the flour you add, the sliced almonds refuse to get distributed evenly throughout the dough. Still, you hope for the best, and let the dough rise.
Except you haven’t mail-ordered the special “osmotolerant” yeast, believing instead that Peter is right when he says regular yeast will work just fine, “but it may take longer.” Unfortunately, it’s so much longer that you might not live long enough to see the day when that shocked yeast wakes up (shocked from all the acid and sugar). Though you have started the process early in the morning, it is now 10pm when you are finally shaping the little panettone for their second rise. They are still pretty sticky, which makes for a cranky fun late-night challenge in the kitchen.
So you do the only thing possible at that point, and you stick the dough in the cute little special-ordered paper panettone cups, and you put them in the fridge overnight, knowing full well that this might be the last straw for that sleepy, shocked yeast.
The next morning, the dough hasn’t risen at all. You take it out of the fridge, and again, hope for the best. You add a little prayer to the hope this time. You scour the internet for panettone recipes/techniques and find some that rise so much they have to be hung upside-down like an angel food cake after baking. (You are well aware this has nothing to do with your current reality.) By 7pm, you figure that fruit flies will move in before this dough budges enough to reach the tops of the little cups. You watch through the oven door and convince yourself that there is an almost imperceptible amount of oven spring, though you might be hallucinating from all the alcohol fumes radiating out of the oven.
By 9pm, you just have to know. Screw this 2-hour cooling period; you’ve been waiting days to taste this bread! You take a bite of the still-warm bread. Surprised, you take another. Moist, heady, fruity, unfortunately overly-dense and with clumps of almond, it tastes good. It’s fun, toasted and dipped into coffee the next morning, while you pretend you’re in Italy. Your spouse likes it, but your son hates it. You’re feeling mezzo e mezzo about the whole thing. Would you make it again? Nah, it takes less time to fly to Rome!
p.s. Oddly enough, I find myself wondering whether I should order some of the special yeast and try again. Here’s why: 5 days after making the bread, I’m still slicing it and lightly toasting it for breakfast. Very few breads last that long on the counter. I like it plain, no extra butter, because the bread is just rich enough already. The fruit satisfies my morning sweet tooth, without being cloying. Once again, eating my words.
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