Sunday, January 18, 2015

Golden Orange Panettone with Chocolate Sauce

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This is the Golden Orange Panettone from Rose's book The Baking Bible.  An epic feat to produce not because it was difficult but because it took extraordinary mental energy for me to understand the many steps.  At  first I diagrammed the recipe into a crazed map with arrows pointing here and there and everywhere.  I then resorted to outlining.  Pages and pages of outline.  It slowly began to make sense but I still felt befuddled.  LIGHT BULB  List the steps numerically!  They numbered one through thirty three.  A visual presentation perhaps? Yes!  Feeble attempt of drawing the dough into a cartoon strip began with La Biga and the journey there of. 


 The only thing I didn't do was to turn it into a three act Broadway play with the Rockettes singing and dancing their way through flour and yeast, flinging orange peel confetti. 

Act I
La Biga


Or as I like to call it Edible Silly Putty.  Seriously, was this what it was supposed to look like or was it a total fail?   I had no idea.  To The Google and landing on Youtube  featuring  Julia Child baking Italian bread with Carol Field, her biga looked as rubbery as mine so I carried on.  

Candied Orange Peel

Way back when I read a wonderful post on Kate's, of Kate Flour fame, delightful blog, A Merrier World explaining how to make orange peel.  It sounded intriguing.  The flavor turned out to be far superior to the very expensive imported Danish candied peel at the local Italian market.  It was messy but not difficult.
The biggest surprise was the mountain of pith produced from quite small oranges. 



Into a long soaking bath along with the raisins. Triple Sec (I used fresh orange juice), vanilla and the elusive Boyajian Orange Oil found at Sur Le Table, a most dangerous den of baking iniquity.  I walked in for oil and walked out with a marble pastry slab, pastry cloth set and oh ya, a triple oil pack.  Post Christmas sale=Too Good To Resist. A few tablespoons of the reserved liquid is saved to pour into the dough and it was so incredible, I couldn't bare to toss the rest.

Act II

Or the day I nearly lost my mind.  How many doughs are there exactly in this Panettone? THREE.  I finally figured out Panettone is sort of a transformer magic act, dough by dough.  Biga is the first on stage who then goes into a water, flour, egg yolk, golden syrup yeast concoction.  That's dough number two,  or  its professional stage name,  The Sponge.  
Next up, Dough Number Three, simply referred to as: Dough.  Flour, dry milk (what is up with the scarcity of dry milk in stores these days?), yeast and salt are mixed together and  poured over the Sponge, blanketing the starter sponge for an eventual trip to the refrigerator after a short warm respite.  

Insert swear word of choice I forgot the salt oh well let's just whisk it right on top of the dough.  

This poor dough, first it gets nice and warm and them BAM!  banished to the cold refrigerator for character building.    Out it comes for softened butter, egg yolks, more golden syrup and candied orange/raisin liquid,   eventually turning the very peculiar original Silly Putty Biga into a smooth and sticky dough, but dough none the less.This is where I panicked.  Was I supposed to let the cold dough warm up first?  Had not a clue but in for a penny in for a pound.


The alchemy continued until it all came together into a gorgeous golden dough.  The fragrant candied orange peel and raisins are sprinkled like pixie dust and a bit of folding tucks them gingerly inside.  Another lovely warm rest and banished to the cold once again, this time to set the butter lest it escape and make a run for it.  A quick and gentle knead to redistribute the yeast,  into an oiled coated baggy.
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ACT III

After a deep sleep with the fishes cocooned in a Ziplock bag, the citron studded dough is brought forth from a long hypothermia slumber and slowly resuscitated back to the land of the living with a warm rise in a steamy DIY  microwave steam bath sitting in the elusive almost proper sized paper mold. 



  Lo a miracle!  The dough rises and fluffs and begins to look like, well dough.  Real dough.  And so the dough graduates to the end goal; the oven which contains a new pizza stone (the imported $90 Panettone at the Italian deli is starting to seem like a good buy) because my ancient one is MIA, with ice thrown in a pan on the oven floor for a burst of steam.  Almost immediately orange begins to scent the air.  Thirty minutes in a foil tent is offered for protection against over-browning and a short time later, the Golden Orange Panettone is finally done.  Nice and warm, the leftover citron/raisin syrup seemed the perfect thing to brush over the crust.  


This Panettone has staying power and doesn't require being hung upside down to prevent collapsing like a souffle.  An eight hour rest and The Golden Panettone is ready .  It's better, much much better at 24 hours. 

 Rose's Panettone is milder, more refined than the commercial ones I am used to.  I loved making this bread, even though I was sleep deprived miscalculating rising times and tending to dough at 3 a.m., got dizzy trying to remember if it was time for a warm rise,  cool rise, first, second or fifteenth rise..  Actually making Panettone seemed way beyond my reach and so I buy them every year at Christmas from Trader Joe's..  The ingredients are essentially the same but that is where the similarity ends. I can't wait to make it again, doubling the amounts of candied orange peel and raisins and brushing it with the leftover orange syrup elixir. Drizzled with Lindt Orange Chocolate Sauce, thank you Faithy for the Lindt tip, and it is spectacular.

Final Curtain Call
Better known as OMGEEEEEE. Breakfast













31 comments:

  1. It turned out beautiful!! I'm preheating my oven right now. Thanks for posting the KAF recipe which uses the tube pan. I used a tube pan for mine.

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    1. I posted that link because Butteryum found tube paper molds. Can't wait to see what you think with a regular tube pan.

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  2. Funny post Vicki! Edible silky putty LOL. Your panettone looks glorious. Did you use the 6x4 inch paper?

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    1. 6 3/4 x 4 1/2. Last packet in the cake decorating store and the only Panettone large paper mold I could find in this town, including William Sonoma and Sur Le Table.

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  3. Oh Vicki - you're so funny! My favorite line: "Sur La Table, a most dangerous den of baking iniquity" - LOL!! Excellent post!

    I love your idea to brush the crust with the leftover simple syrup. I think I'll follow that advice, as well as doubling the orange and raisins. Oh, the next time you need dry milk, check out the Hispanic section of the grocery store.

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    1. Thanks! I knew it must be somewhere but I could only find one king sized box and it is expensive. So peculiar from the days of yore when it was a cheap alternative.

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  4. Looks beautiful! I'm so impressed that you made your own candied orange peel and that you had a 30-step timeline!

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    2. All credit to Kate. I'll never go back to commercial candied peel, if at all possible.

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  5. So funny - are you sure it was only 3 acts? It seemed like more to me.

    Lovely looking panettone.

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    1. More like 103 but tradition dictates. I may never be the same....

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  6. Like you I had to write the whole thing up and make a flow time line.. at time I keep going back to re-confirm that I was in the right place at all times...

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  7. Your panettone looks awesome & perfect Vicki!! You even made your own orange peel! I esp. like the Lindt flavoured orange!! It's my favourite flavour!!!! We certainly can be BFF! LOL! Lindt has this this limited edition orange flavoured (round ball truffles like chocolate with wrapper) during Christmas and I loved it so much. But I couldn't bring myself to buy more cos it was so expensive! $11 for a pack and only like a few pieces!

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    1. Lindt Orange Truffles???? OMgosh I had no idea that was what you were talking about. Now I must look for those. Lots of leftover Christmas candy markdowns at the stores.

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  8. ב''ה

    Well done Vicki! Thanks again for the orange peel link.

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    1. Thanks Mendy. And you're welcome. it was fun although your's looked much tidier than mine.

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  9. Bam! In the refrigerator for character building! That's priceless, Vicki. A job well done in the end. As they say, all is well that ends well!

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    1. I don't know who's character got built more, mine or the Panettone's?!

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  10. I made double batches of dough. Doubled the recipe and then split into 2. :)
    The house lizard are just normal lizards ..or pests roaming around my house..LOL!

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    1. Why haven't we seen pictures of these guys?

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    2. LOL! Because they will be killed off before they come any closer or they will run away because of my scream..! I'm scared of them! Once, i was stamping my date stamp - those auto-self inking ones and while stamping, the lizard jumped out of the stamp and landed right in front of me on my desk. I screamed till like no tomorrow and threw a huge puncher at it and killed it... All my office colleagues sympathised with me and even my boss... lol!

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    3. Hahahaha! I am not a reptile person so I can truly understand but I think they are "cute" from a distance.

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  11. Turned out beautiful!. The microwave steam idea was genius.

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    1. It was Rose's suggestion on page 539. I never bake bread because my house is so cold. I was happy she suggested this plus now I can "re-purpose" the microwave that broke right before Christmas. I kept missing
      e-recycling and now very glad!

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  12. Vicki: You and I are twins from different mothers! There is a den of baking iniquity around the corner from where I work, it is a horrible temptation!! You are so right! My microwave is my dough rising box as well. Loved your funny post! The panettone looks great. I made my own candied peel too. My results will be online tomorrow, so please stop by and look!

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  14. Hi Vicki, love your panettone it looks wonderful and also you made your own orange peel ,what a great idea I will try that next time when I make it overall your post is wonderful.

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    1. http://maggiggie55.blogspot.ca/2015/01/tbb-golden-orange-panettone.html?m=1

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  15. Vicki, I love your post! I would have loved to have seen your Broadway Panettone production; those Rockettes really could have jazzed things up. As it sounds like you'll be baking panettone again, I won't give up hope.

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  16. Gorgeous bread! The crumb is so light and fluffy looking. Your candied orange looks soooo delicious too. Like sweet, tart, caramelized goodness...I want to eat it!

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