Easy Homemade Panettone + Podcast

Whatever panettone success I’ve enjoyed is thanks to the melding of these two great no-knead bread baking books…

First mix your ingredients…

Use the panettone easy recipe here from “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking,” by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François. By the way, I’ve also blogged a detailed review about the book.

Then bake your Panettone this way…

Bake it covered, inside a heat-resistant pot and lid, such as a dutch oven or the insert and lid to a crock pot. Here the gist in someone else’s video for a baking different type of bread. I was inspired to do it that way after reading “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method,” by Jim Lahey. Some time ago, I blogged about using his book.

Hey, when a cousin visited from Italy, she said it was the best she ever tasted!

My loaves aren’t cookbook photo-perfect, I use recipes only loosely, and I never repeat the same recipe exactly the same way. However, these two books will guarantee that you’ll end up with something delicious!

Extra tips…

• The recipe is very flexible. For instance, if you don’t like nuts or dried fruit, double up on one or the other, or leave them out entirely — or substitute them with something else like chocolate chips.
• For the first half of the baking, leave the lid on. For the remainder, take the lid off to shave off baking time and achieve a browner crust.
• Lining the pot with parchment paper makes removal and cleanup much easier.
• Halving the recipe is what I often do. This is a rich cake/bread.
• Leftover  panettone freezes nicely.
• Whole wheat flour is a good, hearty alternative for the white flour.

What holiday food do you eat year ’round?