Chocolate-Dried Cranberry Panettone

“Panettone, the Italian part-bread, part-cake monstrosity that is…inevitably on sale for a knock-down price right up until spring…tastes like Gandhi’s flip-flop after three months in the desert.” –Julie Bindel

A most unfortunate description of the Italian Christmas bread that relegates it to the lowly ranks of American fruitcake and German stollen—stale, dry and with little flavor. I had no trouble finding recipes on the Internet for panettone  puddings, panettone French toast, panettone trifle, and panettone stuffing but I had to rummage through my collection of baking textbooks to find a legit recipe for the actual bread. Its lengthy mixing process and convoluted preparation seems to have dampened the public’s enthusiasm for this celebratory bread as most people now purchase their panettone from a store or bakery. Truthfully, traditional panettone is a bread that I would only bust out on special occasions so for this non-traditional chocolate panettone, I adapted a recipe for a chocolate-cherry sourdough. Much of the success in this recipe hinges on using good ingredients: dark cocoa powder, rich milk chocolate, organic, unbleached bread flour and a well-cultured sourdough starter.

Chocolate and Dried Cranberry Panettone
Yield: 42 3-oz. pieces

2 oz. cold water
0.8 oz instant yeast
1 lb. eggs
1 lb. 8 oz. levain
5 oz cocoa powder
10 oz. granulated sugar
2 lb. 10 oz. bread flour
1 lb. unsalted butter, soft but pliable
1.5 oz. salt
12 oz. dried cranberries
1# milk chocolate

Dissolve the yeast in the water and combine with eggs, levain, cocoa powder, sugar and flour. Using a dough hook, mix the dough on low speed for a few minutes until the dough starts to form and no longer looks shaggy. Cut the butter into a dozen pieces and add it gradually, mixing on medium speed and waiting until the butter has been absorbed before adding another piece. Once the butter is completely absorbed, add the salt and continue mixing for a few more minutes at medium speed. The dough should feel warm, soft, and slightly tacky.  Add the chocolate and cranberries and mix on low speed just until they are worked into the dough. The dough should look shiny and feel like satin. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and ferment at room temperature just until the dough begins to rise. Cover the dough and chill overnight.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. If the dough has not doubled in size, then leave it room temperature until it rises and looks spongy. Portion the dough into 3 ounce pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball and set into a lightly greased 4 ounce muffin tin or paper baking mold. It is tempting to add flour to make sticky doughs easier to work with but you’re only adding dead weight to your dough because the flour won’t mix into the dough. It just sits there, so it’s best to work with the dough while it is cold so that it is not sticky. Cover the portioned dough and set aside in a warm (not hot) place to proof, about two hours.

Preheat oven to 350F. Once the dough has almost doubled in size, gently cut an “X” into the top of the dough with a pair of scissors. This will help the dough rise evenly in the oven and maintain an even, round shape. Bake the dough for 20-25 minutes.  It’s a little tough to judge doneness with this dough as it’s already brown before it hits the oven so I tend to go by feel. If you’re really unsure, use a thermometer and check for a reading of 180F, the temperature at which the starch in the flour gelatinizes. (It’s a trick I use when baking large loaves of brioche that are notoriously finicky to bake evenly.) Take note of how the baked loaf looks and feels so you can better judge its doneness with your own senses. If using a muffin tin, unmold the loaves soon after baking and cool on a wire rack to prevent the bread from steaming and becoming sodden and sinking into itself. And unless you like the sensation of chocolate lava on the tip of your tongue, cool the bread for at least 20 minutes before enjoying.