

Royal Beauty + Birgit’s True Elfins – Happiness Between Tails
Click H-E-R-E for my new podcast page at AnchorFM. This week’s episode is the audio version of “Author Reality + Charles Sterling on Marketing and Author Platform,” which you can read the text version of H-E-R-E.
At the Happiness Between Tails podcast page, you’ll also find links to subscribe, hear, and share it via most any platform, from Spotifyand Apple Podcasts, to Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts, along with RadioPublic and Castbox and Stitcher and more, plus an RSS feed. The full list of 50+ places is at LinkTree.
Panettone, or pan dulce as my Argentine mother calls it, is one of my family’s favorite desserts that I make. For anyone who has yet to become acquainted with panettone, it’s the queen of winter holiday fruit breads. Traditionally shaped like a chef’s hat (though mine are more freeform, same as my novels I’m working on and about them H-E-R-E), fragrant and puffy with yeast, it’s decadence comes from an abundance of eggs, butter, fruits and honey.
Whatever panettone success I’ve enjoyed is thanks to the melding of these two great no-knead bread baking books…
Combine…
The panettone recipe H-E-R-E from “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking,” by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoë François. I blogged a detailed review of the book H-E-R-E.
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The technique of oven baking with a lidded pot like a dutch oven or the pot and heat resistant lid of a crock pot, (example of that is H-E-R-E in a video inspired by “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method,” by Jim Lahey. I blogged about my bread making experience with Lahey’s book H-E-R-E.
A cousin in Italy says it’s the best she’s tasted!
My loaves aren’t cookbook photo-perfect, and I use recipes loosely, yet the above two books guarantee you’ll end up with something wonderful.
Extra tips…
- The recipe is very flexible. For instance, if you don’t like nuts or dried fruit, you can double up on one or the other, or leave them out, or substitute things like chocolate chips.
- For the first half of the baking, leave the lid on. For the remainder, take the lid off. That shaves some of the baking time and gives a browner crust.
- Lining the pot with parchment paper makes things easier.
- Halving the recipe turns out well, too.
- Leftover panettone freezes nicely.
- Whole wheat flour is a good, hearty alternative for the white flour.
- More fruit and/or nuts, less fruit and/or nuts, or none at all — it comes out delicious!
By the way, my honey and I just got back from visiting family in Austin, Texas.

What food tastes most celebratory to you?