I love this sourdough panettone: super airy and light, the slight bitterness of the chocolate chips cuts the sweetness of the dough and is complemented by the hint of orange zests. It is not sour, thanks to the frequent feeding of the starter prior to making the dough. It’s definitely something I’ll continue to make every year around Christmas & New Year’s time.
I initially used Matteo’s recipe, from Ca Mia Breadlab. I made some slight alterations, switched the candied fruits for chocolate, changed the quantities to fit the amount of dough I needed and detailed the instructions A LOT, according to my experience making it. I recommend checking out his blog for amazing sourdough bread recipes. Since we’re on the topic, I’ll just mention again that I also love Maurizio’s blog, from The Perfect Loaf. Lots of sourdough knowledge there, that’s where I learned how to make my starter in the first place.
Also, if you’d like to read a little more about sourdough, I wrote a bunch about how I maintain my starter on this post for Naturally Leavened Cinnamon Rolls.
I made this recipe twice this Christmas, gave some panettone to some people and we kept one for ourselves here, plus a couple of little ones. I recommend you get some little molds by the way, so that you can bake some leftover dough in them if you don’t want to use it all in the big ones. They are great for gifting to some special people, if you want to go the homemade route. The person will know it took time and patience, it really is a labor of love. Plus who doesn’t like an airy sweet bread with bits of chocolate throughout?
The traditional version of panettone takes raisins and candied fruits, but I prefer the version with chocolate. You could do both out of the same dough, just divide it in half right before the step where you’d add the chocolate chips. Add the chocolate to one half and the fruits to the other, and proceed normally with the rest of the recipe! You could do that and see which one you like best 🙂
So I use Round Panettone Paper Baking Molds from Sur La Table , the 5.25-inch ones and the 2.75-inch little ones. For cooling them upside down, the metal skewers I use are these 16-inch non-stick barbecue skewers from Crate & Barrel.
Check out the Highlights on my Instagram with videos of me making this recipe! Here’s a link to it.
Jump to RecipeSourdough Panettone With Chocolate Chips
Ingredients
For each of the 3 feedings you’ll need (ratio 1:1 at 45% hydration):
- 33 g starter (100%)
- 33 g flour (100%)
- 15 g water (45%)
For the first dough:
- 290 g bread flour (100%)
- 82 g yolks (28%) – about 5 yolks from large eggs, room temperature)
- 82 g sugar (28%)
- 88 g unsalted butter (30%) – softened
- 145 g water (50%)
- 80 g starter (28%)
For the second dough:
- 88 g bread flour (100%)
- 88 g yolks (100%) – 5-6 yolks from large eggs, room temperature
- 88 g sugar (100%)
- 4.7 g salt (5%)
- 250 g chocolate chips (284%) – I use semi-sweet chocolate chunks from Trader Joe's
For the aromatic butter:
- 175 g unsalted butter (softened)
- 20 g honey
- Zests from 1 small orange (or half of 1 large one)
- Zests from 1 small lemon (or half of 1 large one)
Instructions
First day – Feeding your starter (3x between 8 am and 5 pm):
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You’ll need to feed your starter 3 times on the same day to help reduce the sourness (it also helps if you have been feeding it regularly for a few days). I fed mine at 8:30 am, then at 1:00 pm, then again at 5:00 pm, and it was ready to be used on the first dough by 9:00 pm, always being kept at around 80-83 F (27-28 C). It takes about 20-30 minutes to make the first dough, so if you don’t want to be working on it at 9-9:30 pm, you can start feeding your starter earlier in the morning.
First day – First dough (9 pm):
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Add the water, sugar, yolks, starter and flour (everything except the butter) to the bowl of your stand mixer and, with the dough hook attachment, mix the ingredients together for a few minutes on speed 2, then increase to 4.
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Reduce the speed to 2 and while the mixer is running, add the butter in chunks. Allow it to get completely incorporated before you add the next chunk.
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Knead for about 15 minutes on speed 2 or 4. If your mixer doesn’t sound like it’s about to die, keep it at 4. If it seems like it’s struggling or getting too hot, lower the speed and knead longer.
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Do the Window Pane Test: grab a bit of dough and start to carefully stretch it between your fingers to check the gluten development. You want it to be very elastic and you want to be able to form a thin film of dough that you can pretty much almost see through, without tearing.
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Butter the counter and dump the dough on it, do a few folds with buttered hands and form a ball. Butter a large bowl, place the dough inside and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
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Allow it to ferment overnight and triple in size. The ideal temperature for the dough is around 80 F (27 C), but we set our thermostat at a lower temp during the night, so I try to at least wake up early the next day and turn the oven light on to warm it up quicker.
Second day – Aromatic Butter (9:30 am):
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Mix the softened butter and honey in a bowl.
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Zest the orange and lemon directly inside that bowl and mix everything together.
Second day – Second Dough (10 am):
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Check the first dough, if it looks like it has tripled in size and has bubbles all throughout, place it in the fridge for 30 minutes while you separate the ingredients for the second dough.
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Weigh the flour and salt into a small bowl.
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In another small bowl, add the yolks and the sugar and whisk them together. I like to pass the yolks through a strainer to avoid eggy smells.
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Place the chilled first dough in the bowl of your mixer. Add the flour and salt, mix them together for a few minutes on low speed. To prevent the flour from flying all around, start mixing with your hand, squeezing it into the dough, then move on to the dough hook of your mixer and knead for a few minutes.
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Add the yolk + sugar mixture little by little while the mixture is running, then continue kneading for about 15 minutes on speed 4 if your mixer allows you, speed 2 if the dough is too heavy for it. You want the gluten to be pretty well developed, so do the window pane test again.
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Add the aromatic butter in chunks, adding the next one when the first one is fully incorporated. Continue kneading for a few more minutes until the dough is very smooth and elastic.
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Butter the counter, turn out the dough onto it, spread it with buttered hands and pour all the chocolate chips or chunks onto it. Press them into the dough, roll up the dough and fold it onto itself a few times. Make a ball and place it into a large buttered bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the turned off oven to rest for about 30 minutes.
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Fold the dough onto itself a few more times, make a ball and place it back into the buttered bowl, cover it with plastic wrap with some slack and place it in the turned off oven until it doubles in size (3.5 to 4.5 hours). Try to maintain the temperature around 80-85 F (27-30 C) by keeping the oven light on. Check on it to make sure it's not too hot.
Second day – Shaping the dough (3 pm):
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The next step, after the dough doubles in size, is shaping the dough and placing it into the molds, but about 30 minutes before you do that, remove the sources of heat (oven light) and crack open the oven door a bit so that the chocolate chunks won't be so melted while you're shaping. You want them to somewhat maintain their shape and not melt into the dough.
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Dump out the dough on a buttered counter, use a dough scraper to divide the dough and a scale to weigh your portions for each mold (about 5.25 x 3.5 inch molds, 480 g in each). Handle the dough carefully so as to maintain as many of the bubbles as you can.
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Shape each piece into a ball. On a unbuttered surface, use the dough scraper to push the dough in different directions while keeping the scraper tilted away from the dough. Pick it up carefully with your two buttered hands and ease it into the mold, it should fill only about 1/3 of it, up to half at the most.
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Allow them to proof in a turned off oven, until they almost fill the molds completely, just an inch short (about 5 hours).
Second day – Scoring, topping and baking (9 pm):
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Remove them from the oven and preheat it to 340 F (170 C).
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With a sharp blade, score a cross on the top of each panettone. You can place a little piece of butter right in the middle (optional).
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Sprinkle pearl sugar all over the top of the panettone.
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Place them on two baking sheets stacked together and bake for about 40-50 minutes, until they're very golden on the top. If you made the little 2.75-inch ones, they'll bake in 25-35 minutes. The double sheets are to prevent the bottoms from browning to quickly or even burning a bit.
Second day – Cooling (9:50 pm):
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While they’re in the oven, prepare the cooling apparatus. You’ll need two boxes or containers of the same height, with flat tops, and metal skewers: two for each panettone. If you have pretty sturdy wooden skewers they’ll work too, as long as they won’t bend from the weight of the panettone.
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As soon as the panettone comes out of the oven, try to work quickly. Run a skewer along the very bottom of it, right along the paper bottom of the mold, about an inch away from the outside edge of the panettone. Keep an oven mitt on your other hand so you can push the metal skewer against it to poke through the back side of the paper mold. Pass the other skewer the same way through the panettone, parallel to the first, a couple inches away from it.
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Turn it upside down by holding onto the skewers and rest them on the two boxes you had set up, so that the panettone is only hanging by the skewers and touching nothing else.
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Do the same for the other ones and cool them like that for at least 4 hours, up to overnight.
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I’ve read a few times that you should wait 24 hours before cutting into it but it’s your call 😀
Recipe Notes
To find out how much dough to put in your panettone mold, I do this: find the volume of your mold in cubic centimeters, then multiply the volume for 0.37 or 0.40 = the weight of dough in grams that you can put in that mold. To make taller panettone, multiply the volume by 0.40. For the ones on these photos I did x 0.37, as you can see they’re not so tall.
To find the volume of your mold, measure its height and the diameter of the bottom (in centimeters, or in inches and then convert them to cm). Divide the diameter in half. Find the volume:
Volume = half the diameter X half the diameter X 3.14 X height.
I like to run the yolks through a sieve before adding them to the dough, just to avoid any eggy smells.
Laiviu
Thanks so much for posting the recipe, Aline! I was the one who asked it to you yesterday in Instagram. I’m starting to doing my cooking maths 😉
Happy New Year!! 😊
admin
You’re so welcome! Good luck in your baking! I’m here if you have any questions 🙂 Happy New Year!!