Does breakfast get any better than this? I don’t think so. This was my first experience of making panettone and it turned out pretty well. The taste is fantastic, it could have been a little lighter but that might have something to do with the electricity cutting out halfway through cooking it. It does that here when it rains heavily, which is very annoying when you are slightly nervous about baking your first panettone and have just spent quite a long time getting the dough to rise…
My idea is to make mini ones as gifts for Christmas but I don’t have any little baking tins and I wanted to try it out on myself first before inflicting it on other people.
The other thing I was desperate to make was mandarin jam with the mountain of mandarins we have here. I think a gift bag of a mini panettone & mandarin jam should make most people smile on Christmas morning, don’t you?
Panettone Recipe
makes an 8 or 9 inch round cake, vegetarian
adapted from “Pickle” by Ellie Jarvis
125gr dried mixed fruit (I used 75gr sultanas & 50 gr dried cranberries)
grated zest of 1 lemon
grated zest of 2 mandarins (or 1 orange)
1 tbsp cointreau (or grand marnier)
125 ml milk
1 level tbsp active dried yeast (1 sachet)
50 gr caster sugar
450 gr strong white bread flour (I used plain flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg & 1 egg yolk, beaten
1 tbsp honey (I used miel de cana)
2 tsp vanilla extract
75 gr butter, softened
Put the dried fruit in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to soak while you make the dough. Heat the milk until warm, remove from the heat, add the yeast, 1 tsp of the sugar and leave to activate for about 5 minutes (a foam will form on the top).
Into a large bowl sieve together the flour, remaining sugar and salt, make a well in the centre and add the beaten eggs, milk & yeast mixture, honey, vanilla, cointreau and softened butter. Mix it together with a wooden spoon and then use your hands to form a soft dough and mix for a few minutes. Drain the fruit and dry with kitchen roll, add it to the dough along with the zests and knead it all together until well-distributed. Turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and knead for 1 or 2 minutes. Shape into a ball, put it back in the bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Turn the risen dough out onto a floured work surface and knead again for 1 minute. Put it in your 8 or 9 inch cake tin which has been lined with baking paper and rubbed with oil. Cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise again in a warm place for 1 – 1 1/2 hours. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees, brush with beaten egg or milk and bake in the bottom third of the oven for 35 – 40 minutes until browned & risen. Leave it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn it out to cool completely on a wire rack.
Slice it like you would a loaf of bread and serve it toasted and smothered with butter & mandarin jam. ..
Mandarin Jam Recipe
If you have never made jam before, this is a really good one to start with. It is easy, quick & delicious you will be so impressed with yourself that you will probably never buy jam again.
Makes 1 jam jar
500 gr mandarins/ satsumas/tangerines
250 gr sugar
the juice of 1 lemon
Wash 2 or 3 of the mandarins and zest them carefully (you don’t want any of the white pith). Then peel all the mandarins removing as much of the pith and filaments as you can. Cut each mandarin in half around its middle and pick out any pips. (Do this over a bowl to collect any juice). Put the halves in the bowl as well and blitz with a stick blender until you have a smoothish puree (you can do this in a food processor).
Put the mandarin puree, zest, sugar and lemon juice in saucepan. Bring to the boil over a medium high heat then reduce the heat so it boils gently. Cook for 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally until it sets. To check if it is set put a saucer in the freezer for a few minutes, then put a teaspoon of the hot jam onto it. Leave it to cool slightly then run your finger through the jam, if the line holds, it’s set.
Pour into a hot, sterilized jar, (I pour boiling water in the clean jar and tip it out just before pouring in the jam) seal tightly, turn upside down and leave to cool. Store in the fridge when cool.
