Food Journal- Christmas Edition: Panettone.
The countdown for the last day of the year is ending folks!
Good morning dear Read.Cash family!
I come back to you with another Food Journal entry, Christmas Edition. The subject of today is Panettone, not a very traditional Christmas treat in Venezuela, meaning that is often eaten but hardly made.
It is one of those treats we got from Italian immigrants long ago, but as far as I know, it's imported not made. I always wondered why though, I mean, as long as is not the fruit kind, is a delicious sweet bread, good with a hot cup of coffee or tea or even Hot Cocoa on a cold winter's night.
I was introduced to it as a kid on one of those years my dad got his Christmas basket. Oh, those baskets had it all, panettone included, and that was one of the last things that got opened by us.
Later on, that Christmas I wrote about for @TengoLoTodo Christmas Challenge? Things did get better after Christmas Day and by New Year's dad got to take us shopping at the supermarket and one of the things we got was Panettone, but this time the chocolate kind, amazing.
Many years later, when I thought I was going to be a Professional Chef (laughing out loud) and entered cooking school, it was a few months away from Christmas and I took a notebook and wrote all the things I was going to make that year, using, of course, my new set of skills learned in school. One of the first entries was Panettone.
Of course, I didn't learn how to do that in school so I turned to my friend Youtube to look for tutorials. I got scared. The process was too complicated and tiresome, and I let it pass year after year after year.
Last year I finally had the courage of making it, thanks to a video a saw on Facebook. The recipe was not for Panettone but it had almost the same procedure and the same ingredients, so I went for it and made it. I didn't have gas at the time, nor a proper casing so, I used a cake pan and firewood. It was tasty for sure, and the texture was just right, not too moist, not too dry, like the ones you buy in the supermarket.
Then I bought the casings and refilled the gas cylinder and made them in the oven. They looked so beautiful! Sadly, no record of them was saved because the only phone we had broke and we lost everything that was there.
So this year I decided to make them again and document the process properly to share with you all because I'm so proud of myself that I want to shout it out!
Warning: I made a mistake and they didn't turn out perfect, later I'll tell you why...
Ok, in this recipe the dough is done in two steps: the prefermentand the final dough. For the first one you have to mix yeast, sugar, milk, and flour until you get a runny yet hard mixture, it's not liquid but not completely solid either. That has to rest a minimum of 1 hour, but if you prefer all night that's good too, that'll improve the taste.
After you let your preferment rest at the appropriate time you mix that with the rest of the ingredients which are, eggs are beaten, sugar, milk and water, flour, butter, and chocolate/raisins.
You take a big bowl and place your preferment and add milk and water and mix.
Then, add the eggs already beaten and mix those as well, to then add the sugar.
Once all that is mixed add in whole the flour and keep mixing; at one point you'll have to use your hands and finally the butter.
Your dough will be runny, you'll feel like you'll have to add flour, don't do it! Just keep working on it, it will come a time when it'll start to detach from your hands.
Let that rest for 1 and a half hours, then start to knead it again to finally add the chocolate chips and raisins. Divide that dough in two and place it in the casings.
Here's my mistake. I should have used 250grms casings but instead, I bought 500grms casings. Later I'll tell you why that was a mistake.
Let that rest for 1-hour or until the dough rises to the top line of the casing. Brush the top carefully with egg-wash and bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 220ºC.
Why do I say I made a mistake?
My dough rose beautifully, but, because it was at the wrong casing it didn't grow up to the top line, so, when I bake it, it was supposed to go over the top to get golden brown and beautiful, but it didn't it had rose to its peak. That meant that I had to leave them in the oven more time for them to golden, and they dried out. The taste was awesome, but they came out dry.
Despite that we enjoy them, my sister was jealous because last year she made them too, and unlike me, she has the stand mixer to do it, I used only my hands, and mine were better, said her Italian husband.
I'm off now to buy the proper casings to see if I can pull it off by New Year's, wish me luck!
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This is 100% Original Content.
The images are my property and taken with a Techno Spark 6GO.
See you next time.
✨✨Blessings✨✨
@rebeysa85
December 29th, 2021.
Even if the result was not as expected, I find it impressive that you even tried to do it. I would never have thought of making a panettone myself. I hope the next attempt turns out well, sometimes the problem is the quality of the yeast. My son last year tried to make a Roscon de Reyes and the dough did not rise as it should because of the yeast he used, for the second attempt he bought a different one and it came out perfect.