Hi everyone!
A few days ago I posted my first attempt at making “panettone” and got a lot of great feedback. Some people gave me incredibly helpful tips to improve my results, and pointed out that the recipe I used can’t actually be called panettone for several reasons, like using commercial yeast, not making two doughs, etc.
So now I’m not really sure what to call this recipe anymore. Brazilian Christmas sweet bread with panettone vibes? PaNOTtone? Faketone? Either way, I still think it’s an interesting bake because, at the end of the day, it is a very tasty sweet bread.
Here are some changes I made based on the advice I received and some extra research I did:
● I bought better flour: I used a Brazilian flour with 13% protein that’s highly recommended here. It helped me finally achieve a windowpane, which I couldn’t get on my first attempt.
● I used cold ingredients, including chilling the mixer bowl: This also helped me reach the windowpane stage without overheating the dough.
● I cooled them upside down: duh, right?
● About the recipe itself: I used the exact same base recipe as before, but I added walnuts to both the fruit and chocolate versions, and added a bit of white chocolate to the fruit one because I read somewhere that it melts into the dough and helps with moisture (It did). I wanted to add pistachios but couldn’t find them, and dried apricots were absurdly expensive this week.
The result is definitely lighter this time, and I even got some fermentation bubbles, which was cool, but I’m still frustrated with the rise. It doesn’t get that tall, round dome like the reference recipe, and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.
I wanted to try making a biga, but I didn’t have the ingredients the night before, I had to buy everything in the morning, so I ended up using a sponge again.
In the future, I’d love to try a traditional recipe with lievito madre and the two-dough method, but I feel like I need to study more first. I have zero experience with natural fermentation, so I don’t want to waste time and money blindly experimenting, and Christmas is coming up, so I really need to reach a decent result in time to give these as gifts to my friends and family.
That’s it. Hope you enjoy the update!
by No_Worth5599
8 Comments
Recipe:
I used a [Tik Tok](https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSfkJ8D2d/) recipe as the base, but I made a few adjustments of my own, which I listed in the optional steps below.
The original recipe is in Portuguese, but it’s a great reference. 😊
Yeast Starter (Sponge):
100 g bread flour — 3.5 oz
100 ml water (≈ 100 g) — 3.5 oz
10 g instant dry yeast — 0.35 oz
—
Main Dough:
300 g bread flour — 10.6 oz
7 egg yolks (≈ 140 g) — 4.9 oz
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
70 ml fresh orange juice (≈ 70 g) — 2.5 oz
30 ml rum (optional) — 1 fl oz (≈ 1 tablespoon)
90 g sugar — 3.2 oz
20 g milk powder — 0.7 oz
10 g honey — 0.35 oz
4 g salt — 0.14 oz
100 g softened butter — 3.5 oz
1 tablespoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste — ≈ 0.5 oz
—
Fillings:
130 g chocolate chips of your choice — 4.6 oz
(I used a mix of milk and dark chocolate)
130 g mixed dried and crystallized fruits of your choice — 4.6 oz
(I used golden and dark raisins, dried orange peel, and dried papaya)
Optional Steps (Highly Recommended for Extra Flavor)
1. Preparing the Fruit Soaking Syrup
Place the dried and crystallized fruits in a small saucepan.
Add a bit of orange and lemon zest, the orange juice, and the rum.
Cook over medium heat until the fruits become soft and hydrated and part of the alcohol evaporates. About 2–3 minutes after it starts boiling.
Strain the mixture and place the liquid in the freezer until well chilled.
You can use this chilled liquid in the dough to boost flavor.
If you prefer, you can skip this step and use plain orange juice instead.
2. Releasing Essential Oils from the Citrus
Take the orange and lemon zests.
Press them with your fingertips with the sugar to release the remaining essential oils and aroma.
Set aside to use later (optional but adds fragrance).
—
Sponge (Yeast Starter)
1. Mix all the sponge ingredients until combined.
2. Place the bowl inside the turned-off oven and let it rise until doubled in size.
This took about 30 minutes for me, but it depends on the room temperature.
—
Main Dough
1. To the risen sponge, add the egg yolks, honey, sugar, orange juice (or the chilled syrup from earlier), flour, and milk powder.
2. Mix using a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook on low speed for about 2 minutes.
3. Scrape down the bowl, increase to speed 2, and mix for another 10 minutes.
4. Monitor the dough temperature and keep it below 26°C (78°F).
If you don’t have a thermometer, try not to mix the dough for more than about 12 minutes at a time to avoid overheating it.
If the dough warms up, pause mixing and place it in the refrigerator to cool down.
5. Chill the dough for about 20 minutes, then resume mixing.
6. Add the salt, vanilla paste, and softened butter gradually, mixing until the dough develops full gluten structure (“windowpane stage”).
This entire mixing process took me 20–30 minutes, with several pauses to prevent overheating.
7. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled.
Mine took around 2 hours.
Alternatively, you can refrigerate the dough for a slow rise of about 12 hours.
—
Shaping
1. Lightly oil your work surface.
2. Roll the dough into a rectangle.
3. Divide the dough into two equal portions:
Spread the dried fruits over one half.
Spread the chocolate chips over the other half.
4. Gently roll and shape each portion into a ball, distributing the fillings evenly.
5. Place each dough ball into its mold.
6. Let rise again until doubled — about 2 hours.
—
Baking
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F).
2. Place a tray with water on the bottom rack to create steam.
3. Bake for about 55 minutes, or until the top is golden and no raw dough remains.
If using a probe thermometer, bake until the internal temperature reaches 92°C (198°F).
—
Cooling
You can let the breads cool at room temperature and enjoy slightly warm.
Or, for best structure, cool them upside down to prevent collapse.
No matter what they are called, they look incredible! Especially the chocolate ones!
Clearly not a panettone but still look very appetizing. Find a better name.
We call it “Pan Dulce” here in Paraguay. You could consider it a Pannetone variant unless you’re an insufferable asshole, and there are a lot of those on the internet.
Awesome windowpane gif!
yea, the other day, some people on here got on to me for my panettone not technically being pannetone. tbh, i don’t really care and i’ll probably still call it panettone. we still call pesto pesto even if it’s made in a blender, right? i say call it “ non-traditional pannetone”. it satisfies all parties, i’d say.
PS: your “panettone” look fucking great!
Phony-ttone
Looks excellent! Well done