The Panettone Recipe Fiasco
Posted on Dec 7, 2010 10:47:55 AM
There will be another cooking competition at The Company right before Christmas, after more than one year (check my almost-award winning fruit tart here), and the rule now is to cook something typical for Christmas in your country. What is typical back home for me? Lasagna (in my area we call it pasticcio by the way), but the rule is, the dish has to be cold. I’m not sure why it can’t be cooked at home and then heated in the microwave (maybe because we only have two for the whole building? Bloody stingy Company I work for….). Anyway, if I want to take part, my only hope is either Panettone or Pandoro, the two typical Italian Christmas cakes. Let’s say upfront that nobody in Italy makes them at home, it requires too much work: kneading and waiting and raising and kneading again…but I thought, what the heck, I’ll try a panettone recipe. Now, I followed a recipe from an Italian site, and you can see the result below: a panettone fiasco.
It was all hard to chew and completely burnt on top, so I had to dismember it. Still good for the morning milk (mix butter, sugar and eggs and something edible will come out anyway), but very far from what it should be.
Two things I learnt: I use fresh yeast, but not all yeasts are equal. In my case, I think I’ll have to double the quantities. Second: when you see a recipe for a cake telling you to bake at a temperature which is higher than 180C (356F), be suspicious, and don’t do it. I’m still not sure if i should give this panettone recipe another try or not. Maybe i should buy one at Lidl and pass it off as mine, stay tuned…
