I inherited my love of great food from both of my parents. It seems I inherited my love of baking from my beloved grandmother, Grazia Palazzolo Alfano.
I am the youngest of a dozen cousins and because my family moved across the country when I was little, I didn't spend as much time with her as I would have liked.
My cousin Grace, who is named for our grandmother, describes Grandma's lemon meringue pie as a thing of beauty! My brother Sam didn't care for her anise cookies when he was a little boy, but cousin Patricia remembers fig cookies and sesame cookies and a tower of sweet dough balls covered with honey and colored sprinkles every Christmas.
I don't know if Grandma ever baked panettone, but I know she would have loved this recipe. This blog post is in her honor and in her memory.
I am the youngest of a dozen cousins and because my family moved across the country when I was little, I didn't spend as much time with her as I would have liked.
My cousin Grace, who is named for our grandmother, describes Grandma's lemon meringue pie as a thing of beauty! My brother Sam didn't care for her anise cookies when he was a little boy, but cousin Patricia remembers fig cookies and sesame cookies and a tower of sweet dough balls covered with honey and colored sprinkles every Christmas.
I don't know if Grandma ever baked panettone, but I know she would have loved this recipe. This blog post is in her honor and in her memory.
This is such an elaborate recipe, it took me a week to bake it. I was planning to order the candied orange peel, but it seemed like a big expense for a seldom used ingredient....so I made my own.
It was a perfect time of year for this project, oranges are so fresh and plentiful. Once removed from the sugar syrup, the peel is tossed in a little sugar and then set aside to dry for two days. The candied orange peel is an addictive confection on its own! Fortunately, I made plenty of it!
This is another one of those recipes that aren't really difficult, just time consuming. Fortunately, the schedule wasn't as unforgiving as others we have encountered. The dough begins with a biga (starter) that takes three days to develop. After that, the dough is mixed, followed by an itinerary of rising, folding in the dried fruits, refrigeration, folding, rising, refrigerating again, shaping, rising and finally baking the panettone. This is only a rough summary of the process--for the full recipe and instructions, I urge you to purchase your own copy of the Baking Bible--you won't regret it!
Of course, paper panettone molds were in abundance all over town at Christmas time, but because I've never made panettone before I didn't purchase them! Now they are not to be found! I improvised with parchment paper and a six inch cake pan with instructions I found online.
I was very nervous about this maneuver! Sharp scissors are dipped in water and then into the dough to create a cross-shaped opening on top of the loaf. The dough was so light and tender that I was afraid I would deflate it. Consequently, I didn't snip deeply enough and got a very wimpy cross shape in the finished panettone! At least, I think that's why.
Because I was going on vacation, I carefully froze the panettone as soon as it was cool. When I got home, I defrosted it and made the Chocolate Drizzle Glaze.
I made a batch and a half of the Drizzle Glaze because I knew that I was going to share this around with a few taste testers and that some would inevitably be lost in the transfer to various plastic bags.
The Drizzle Glaze is served over toasted slices of Golden Orange Panettone...delicious! The defrosted bread is a bit heavier than it was fresh from the oven, but then again, it was supposed to "mellow" overnight anyway, so I'm not sure would have been much different if we had eaten it immediately. However, it is so delicious when toasted, I can hardly complain!
This is a wonderful treat, but I will save it for holiday baking. This is the first time I have ever made panettone, so glad Rose has provided us with another great recipe!
This is a wonderful treat, but I will save it for holiday baking. This is the first time I have ever made panettone, so glad Rose has provided us with another great recipe!