Spelt Panettone test bake 1: Laura in the Kitchen recipe

This Christmas make a homemade Spelt Panettone. In my video test bake, 1 is the Easy Panettone from Laura in the Kitchen but with white spelt flour and no citrus peel. Try baking a panettone this Christmas. A homemade panettone is so much better than a store-bought one and costs less. The making process for panettone is lengthy (actually a whole day) but worth the effort. I used white spelt flour but feel free to swap this out for regular wheat flour. Panettone is an enriched dough with eggs, milk, dried yeast for ease, butter, zest of orange and lemon, vanilla and your choice of dried fruit. My test recipe was inspired by Laura in the Kitchen, however, I tweaked the flour and changed the fruit combination.

Takes = starter 10 mins, rest 30 mins, dough 10 mins, rest 2 x 3 hours (house must be warm)
Total time needed = 7.5 to 8 hours
Bakes = 35 to 40 minutes
Makes = 1 large or 2 small 11cm (6 inches) size paper mould (dough should weigh 700g per mould)

Ingredients for 2 small panettone or 1 large

• White Spelt Flour or regular – 455g* (about 3 cups+1/4) + extra for kneading and dusting
• Eggs – 3
• Warm water –  65ml (about 1/4 cup)
• Warm milk – 65ml (about 1/4 cup)
• Dried fast yeast – 1 x 7g packet (2.5 tsp)
• Soft Unsalted Butter – 70g (5 tbsp)
• White sugar – 100g (1/2 cup) (15 + 85gm)
• Zest of a large orange – about 1 tbsp
• Zest of a lemon
• Vanilla extract or real vanilla bean paste – 1 tsp
• Fine salt – 1 tsp
• Dark raisins soaked – 70g (1/2 cup)
• Sultanas soaked – 70g (1/2 cup)
• Cranberries*(these didn't need soaking and the colour bleeds) – 70g (1/2 cup)

*(I omitted 30g of citrus peel and added extra cranberries instead)

Method

Step 1 Yeast starter (skip this and use fresh yeast or sourdough starter)
ADD warm milk and water into a medium-sized bowl, sprinkle the yeast on top and wait for 5 minutes until bubbles appear.

Step 2 First dough starter
ADD 25g flour and 15g of sugar to the starter and whisk, then cover with plastic wrap until it has doubled in size about 30 to 45 mins.

Step 3 Mixing Flavours
ADD into the bowl (or your stand mixer or a large bowl) eggs, a balance of sugar (85g), vanilla, orange and lemon zest then whisk by hand.

Step 4 Kneading all ingredients
ATTACH the dough hook then add in the starter that has risen, flour, salt, and butter and mix on low to combine. Increase the speed to medium and knead for about 3 minutes. Add in dried fruit and mix for another minute. In my video, I added an extra 35g (1/4 cup) and adjusted my recipe above. Different flours react differently.

Step 5 Remove dough and then let rise
ADD flour to your bench remove the sticky dough work in a little flour and push in the fruit to make a round ball. Add vegetable oil to a large bowl and place the dough ball into the bowl. Smear a little oil on the top of your dough. Cover again with plastic wrap and rest in a warm spot for 3 hours until the dough has tripled in size.

Step 6
DIVIDE and add to the mould. For a 5-inch paper mould about 500g per panettone. My paper mould measured 5.5 inches and I divided this dough into two and had about 580g per mould. Otherwise, place the entire dough in a large mould. Make an X on the top with a knife, and brush with a little butter. Cover and let rise for another 3 hours. Then brush with an egg wash (beaten egg with a dash of milk or water). Bake in a preheated oven 180˚C fan (I will drop this down for the next bake to 170˚C) for 35 to 40 minutes. Check after 15-20 minutes, the bread might need to be covered with aluminium foil and drop the temperature down 10 degrees if they are browning too much. Once they’re done baking, take 12-inch skewers and skewer at two points about 1cm from the bottom (0.5 inches) (in my video I did this too high up).  Cool hanging for at least 5 hours.

Sue Maree P Baking Tips

• what I would change next time.
  *Don't add egg wash
  *cut with a sharp blade just before baking
  *add a small tablespoon of unsalted butter
  *make sure skewers are towards the base, and hang on two paper towel rolls
• Yeast – use about 20g fresh yeast or 65g sour sourdough starter instead. You may need to allow a little extra time for rising.
• Flour – swap out the spelt flour for strong high protein 00 flour or strong bread flour. Protein content should be at least 12g of protein if possible.
• 500g of dough for a 5-inch mould.
• 700g of dough for a 6-inch mould* (about my size)
• 850g of dough for a 7-inch mould.
• No skewers in the house - you could use metal knitting needles instead