Essential Panettone Baking Tools (Gift Guide) with Tips
Burnt Basque Cheesecake Orders Are Open through December 11th
Burnt Basque Cheesecake Update:
Hi Friends,
What a crazy couple of weeks it has been. I am in recovery mode from post-Thanksgiving baking. I am so incredibly grateful for everyone’s support. I released spots for orders for the first two weeks of December and I will be releasing pre-orders for Christmas/New Year in the next couple of weeks. I am just working out some last minute plans for the last month of 2023. How! How did you get to the end of the year?
Due to popular demand, we will be adding the Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake to the permanent menu. The spice blend this fall is fire. The cheesecake has Korintje cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
Photo of Our Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake
ESSENTIAL PANETTONE BAKING TOOLS (GIFT GUIDE) WITH TIPS:
With panettone season in full swing, here is a list of must haves for any panettone baker!
Let's start with Panettone books that are available in English. There are two!
Remember 28C by Jose Romero from Books for Chefs
Discount Code: REMEMBER28_OLGA
Jose is an instructor at EPGB school in Barcelona where he teaches students from all over the world how to bake Panettone. In this book he shares his approach to baking panettone. The book is bilingual and written in both Spanish and English.
Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie by Thomas Teffri-Chambelland
The book includes a deep dive into the science of panettone baking (as deep as is currently available) and provides panettone formulas from the following Panettone bakers: Ezio Marinato, Mauro Morandin, Alfonso Pepe, Daniel Jorda, Miquel Saborit, Christophe Louie, Emmanuel Revuz and Roy Shvartzapel.
My Go To Panettone tools:
* I totally understand how stressful it can be starting your panettone journey. There are many specialty tools and ingredients that one needs. But I am going to be super honest with you and only suggest products that can give you good results or the type of results that you would be satisfied with. If you have other needs let me know in the comments and I can make recommendations based on those needs.
These are my favorite molds! Giant panettone (1 kilo) are definitely fun to bake but I prefer to bake my panettone in 500 gram molds. This is much more practical especially when I mix a small amount of dough in my KitchenAid instead of the larger spiral mixer. I like to use anywhere from 350 to 525 grams of dough. Anything smaller I would divide and bake in cups.
As much as I hate KitchenAid, I will admit that this is the most affordable option for panettone baking. Hate is a strong word, we just have a history. The 5-quart is perfect, more specifically it does a very good job of mixing about 500 grams of panettone dough. The mixer is also affordable for the majority of bakers. You still obviously need to save for it but it won’t cost you as much as a spiral mixer. I used to have a 7-Quart Professional Series KitchenAid and it didn’t do as good of a job mixing panettone dough since the quantity of dough was more than the mixer could comfortably handle.
Petra Panettone Flour
This is non negotiable for new panettone bakers! It is so much harder especially if you are learning on your own to learn how to bake panettone without the use of panettone flour. If you want to use local flours that’s a great goal but the thing is that all of the formulas out there in the universe are made for these highly customized flours so unless you have access to a formula or knowledge (instructor) you are better off learning with Italian panettone flours and then taking that knowledge and making your own formula fitting the characteristics of your local flours!
Temperature Control Tools: Proofer and Wine Cooler
This is another non negotiable. If you want to bake Panettone you need to be able to control temperature both on the cold and warm end. The cold is specifically for the pasta madre. I keep mine at 16C/60F all year around. You can probably find a cold place now that it’s winter but please make sure it doesn’t fluctuate. The warm is needed for both the pasta madre (during warm refreshments) and for the panettone dough, both for the first dough fermentation and the final proof. Both of these temperatures must be consistent otherwise you risk all of that hard work and expensive ingredients.
This might seem excessive but for a home panettone baker who is making a tiny quantity of dough the margin for error is enormous. What I mean is that even with a couple of grams being off here and there all of your hard work can go to waste. This scale is a great price and would make a lovely present for any serious home baker especially in the world of panettone.
That’s it! That’s all you really need to make great panettone at home. Remember you can use chopsticks for hanging your panettone upside down. You don’t need a pH meter. If you want to be extra, here is a full list of items I use for panettone baking.
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How are the two panettone books different? If I want to know more about PM and maybe eventually (don't know when!) making a panettone, which one do you recommend more? Or if you do recommend getting both, which one should I read first or doesn't matter?