Perfect Italian Panettone Made in a Bread Machine and Baked in the Oven

Make perfect Italian panettone dough in your bread machine, then bake it in the oven for professional results in your own kitchen!

What is Panettone?

Panettone is a traditional Italian yeast cake which is made and eaten primarily at Christmastime.

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It’s a cross between a cake and bread, and isn’t very sweet at all. There are different kinds, but they are always lightly sweetened, and usually, dotted with candied fruit, raisins, and sometimes nuts, soft fillings, and more recently, chocolate. 

Purchased panettoni are always baked in a special paper case, and you can buy them to make your own professional looking cakes at home. However, there’s no need to buy anything as long as you have a brown paper lunch bag. (If you want to make them look fancy, you can buy these on Amazon.)

A recent review (Dec 2022) “I followed Christina’s recipe to the “T” and the result was a wonderful panettone that tasted much better than anything I could find in stores. Thank you, Christina!”   – Brenda

Years ago, I wanted to make my own panettone and adapted a recipe from my Fresh Ways with Italian Cooking cookbook and made it in my bread machine. I only made the dough in the machine though, as I didn’t want a “bread-machine-shaped panettone”! Now you can follow my directions below for perfect Italian panettone like the one in the photos!

More Italian Christmas recipes can be found here.

How are you Supposed to Eat Panettone? (Like Italians Do)

The most popular way to eat panettone (and how you should eat it) is to slice it and enjoy it like a regular piece of cake, except you don’t have to eat it with a fork. Seeing some tips (online) on how to eat panettone has me shaking my head. PLEASE DO NOT PUT PANETTONE ON A CHEESE BOARD to dunk into dips! This cake/bread is so delicious, there’s not need to cover up the flavor by dipping it into something. I can guarantee, no Italians are doing this.

When panettone begins to get stale, and this will take quite a long time, you can toast it, serve it for breakfast with jam, or another spread. Panettone makes excellent bread and butter puddings! It’s also desirable to cut into cubes and use for a sweet fondue, like chocolate (this is an acceptable way to “dip” panettone). Do enjoy a slice with a cup of tea or coffee, or even better, some Prosecco! (I love La Marca!) 

What Type of Panettone is this Recipe?

The recipe is for a Venetian-style panettone, which are taller and more thin than other panettoni. It includes directions for using a brown paper lunch bag for the panettone to rise and bake in–if you don’t have a panettone pan or paper case. I’m over the moon with this Silverwood pan which I was gifted by the Bee’s Knees British Imports! They have so many interesting pans, especially for British baking, since they are made in England!

I don’t like candied peel or almonds in my panettone, so I omitted them and used raisins and sultanas, instead. Incidentally, this election cake is something along the same lines as a panettone given that it’s made with yeast, but is a sweet cake.

You can choose to add whatever you like, as I said, chocolate pieces or chips have made their way into panettoni nowadays. If you don’t finish it off in a few days, perfect Italian panettone makes the best bread and butter pudding! Cut it into chunks and dry it off in the oven (or even in the toaster, before you cut it up into pieces). 

If you want to learn more about Venetian food, and Venice, in general, be sure to follow Luca at Luca’s Italy. You’ll love him and his site, especially because he’s British Italian, like me! :) So, he’s English Italian and not Scottish Italian, but we can’t all be perfect–just kidding! 

As always, I highly recommend using a scale when baking for best results.

November 2020: I’ve been asked for directions without using a bread machine so I’m adding that option, too.

Prepare the dough in the bread machine.

Place the water, egg yolks, vanilla, and grated peel into the bread machine first. Next add the sugar, salt, flour and pieces of butter around the outside of the metal pan on top of the flour (see photo below). Make an indentation in the flour and add the yeast. Start the bread machine on “dough” setting.

When the machine beeps to add additional ingredients to the dough, toss in the sultanas and raisins, and allow the cycle to finish. Keep an eye on the dough after it’s finished and allow to rise until doubled in size. (Alternatively, you can remove the dough and put it in a large sealed container and allow to rise in the refrigerator overnight.)

Prepare the dough in a mixer.

In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water (helps if the bowl is warm, too) and let stand for a few minutes. Add the sugar, salt, 1/2 cup butter, yolks, vanilla, citrus peel and about half of the flour. Set on low speed with a dough hook until flour is moistened, then increase to high for about 5 to 10 minutes untill the dough is shiny and smooth. Add the remaining flour and continue to knead until smooth. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

Prepare the dough by hand.

Follow the mixer directions above until it’s time to turn on the mixer. Stir the ingredients with a heavy spoon. Place on a board, add the rest of the flour and  knead the dough until it is smooth and springy (about 5 to 10 minutes). It will be soft and slightly sticky. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.

You can make these cinnamon rolls in the bread machine, too!

How to Make a Baking Case for Perfect Italian Panettone Using a Lunch Bag 

1. Cut a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom of the 6″ pan; butter or spray the circle of paper and place it in the bottom of the pan.
2. Cut another piece of parchment to line the inside of the brown paper bag (so the bread will bake inside parchment without touching the brown paper) after you have cut the bottom out of the bag.
3. Fold the top edge down to form a cuff then butter or spray (I used a coconut oil spray as it’s much easier than using butter) the inside of the parchment. It should be about 6.5″ tall when finished.
4. Place the paper case in the pan.

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and knead into a ball.

Place it into the pan/paper case.

Allow to rise until almost doubled. Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C.

While the oven is heating, brush the top of the panettone dough with the beaten egg white and sprinkle with the crushed sugar cubes.

Bake for 30 minutes. Then reduce heat to 325°F/160°C and continue to bake until a long, thin skewer comes out clean (about another half an hour). If the top browns too quickly, cover with aluminum foil. Remove the perfect Italian panettone from the oven and allow to cool in pan for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove the panettone from the pan (my bag slipped right off). Place on rack until completely cool.

Finally, you can cut your perfect Italian panettone into tall slices and serve.

Now you can add perfect Italian panettone to your list of “things I’ve baked”! Isn’t it impressive?

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