Patrick S

I had exactly the same thought when I made the ganache. You'd never guess it has 3/4lb of butter. I just love the caramel ganache. One day I'd really like to experiment more with the combination of caramel and ganache. I'd like to go use even more caramel and see how that works. Good job, Sandra!

Looks delicious, Seth! Congrats. I don't know about you, but I liked the cake best served right out of the fridge, when the ganache is slightly firm. When I made my two pave on Dec 4, I froze one of them. I defrosted it on the 31st, started eating it on the 1st, and it was every bit as good as on the 4th. EDIT: Seth, I'm also curious how much sugar you used in your cocoa loaves. Did you use 1 1/4 cups, or 150 grams of sugar?

Here's the first little slice. I like it, its good, but I still have a ways to go. Its still much more dense and not as moist or elastic as the store-bought panettone. I definitely need to try longer proofing times as you suggest trillium. The recipes Ive done call for a total of 4-5 hours proofing. Maybe I should try 2 days in the fridge? And yes, the coffee can worked just fine for me. I just turned it upside down, and it slid right out, no problem. Earlier tonight, I saw someone's baking blog entry on panettone with chestnuts made from a recipe in Berenbaum's The Bread Bible. This blogger wrote that: That's a pretty emphatic endorsement, so it looks like I might be checking out the bread bible soon.

I stayed up til about 3am this morning trying out Malgieri's recipe. This time I baked 1 panettone in a parchment-lined coffee can (that's why there are lines on the side of bread), and the other in an 8" springform. I used about twice the zest and about 20% more fruit than the recipe called for. When the bread was done I brushed it all over with melted butter mixed with honey. The bread made in the springform was a little overdone, but even so I can already say I like it alot better than the Yard version. I took out the cylinder shaped bread when it reached an internal temp of about 170F, about 10F cooler than the round bread and the Yard bread. I did inrease the fruit above what is called for in the recipe, but I wish I had gone ahead and doubled it as trillium recommended. I'm not sure if I like the large quantity of orange peel though. I think I might prefer subbing a bunch of orange zest for some or all of the peel, and maybe adding dark raisins and chopped apricots.

trillium, is this by any chance the recipe you use?

Thank you, Alberto, for crushing my dreams Just kidding, of course. I'm sure you're right. I will probably try a few more recipes though. Even if I cant replicate the panettone I bought, I might still find something delicious and panetonne-ish. Or not.

I used the caramel ganache only. But it probably would have been shinier if I had not cooled it so much before applying it to the loaves.

After sampling my panettone a few more times last night, I'm more inclined to agree with you about the recipe, DiH. I still like it, but its really only a pale reflection of the one I bought at the store. I might try it one more time with a few changes. The panettone I bought had a texture something like King's Hawaiian bread, whereas the one I made had a texture more like plain white bread. I don't know if I need different flour, longer proofing, longer kneading, more sugar. . . I think just make a bunch of french toast with what's left.

Those are fine-looking macaroons, Elie!

Now I'm practically drooling! I'll let you know how my french toast works out.

Another thing, and I don't know how or if it matters much, is that I left my dough quite sticky before I baked it. Beyond the first 3.5 cups, I used maybe another 1/4cup of flour.

No, I didn't break the dough into 6 balls before I put it in the pan. I just couldn't see the rationale, so this was one of those times when I crossed my fingers, deviated from the recipe, and hoped for the best. Given your experience, it doesn't seem to have done any harm. Maybe we have different tastes, but the one I made isnt tasteless at all. Next time I will use a bit more sugar, more fruit, and more zest, but I like where I'm starting from.

Well, I've made my first panettone. I used Yard's recipe, which includes candied orange peel and golden raisins (plus 1/4C lemon zest mixed into the dough). Yard says to soak the fruit for 24hrs in either white wine+rum, or cognac, plus a vanilla bean. I used cognac with a little amaretto, and a tablespoon of vanilla paste. There is an additional 1/4C amaretto in the dough. Yard gives a simple suggestion for a panettone mold: a parchment-lined coffee can. I didn't have one handy, so I used a 10" springform. The smell of the panettone while cooking was awesome: bread and citrus and amaretto. I tried one small slice last night as it was cooling, and it was very good. A little denser and not quite as sweet as the one I bought, but just as delicious overall. I look forward to working with this recipe more, tweaking it, and improving its appearance.

On my stove, the back left burner vents heat from the stove. If I set the stove to 170F, its lowest setting, and set a pan over the back left burner, the surface of the pan is maintained at 86F. If I set a covered bowl with my dough on top of the pan, it maintains an 80-ish temp inside the bowl. This method is probably not the most energy-efficient one, but it has worked for me.

Nice. Looks just like a bell jar!

Funny this thread came up, as I did make Medrich's Best Cocoa Brownies a few days ago. They are really dark and firm/fudgy, and easy to make too.

This year, one of the markets I shop at had rows and rows of mass-produced panettone. I had never tried this before, but I picked one up anyway. Well, it turned out to be just awesome: soft, moist, and extremely flavorful. I had visions of panettone french toast, panettone pudding, etc., but the bread didn't last long enough for any of that. My wife and I scarfed it down in two days. So, now I want to make panettone at home. I have a recipe from Sherry Yard's The Art of Baking that looks good. I'm a neophyte when it comes to bread, but the recipe looks pretty do-able. Does anyone have any general advice for the budding panettone baker? I'm interested in, for instance, what is the best way to prepare the fruit? Soak in rum? Rum plus white wine? Cognac? Do you need a paper mold to get a cupola-shaped panettone? And of course, does anyone have a recipe that they think is the best? Thanks so much, Patrick

Thanks for the tip, K8Memphis!

Chefpeon, I was also given a tartlet pan for Christmas. I also got a mini rose bundt pan. Other goodies I recieved include bottles of Chambord and Frangelico, a good-quality microplane zester, and an 18" pastry bag (finally, I can load all my batter in the bag at once. Yippee!). I hope everyone had a happy Christmas/Channukah/solstice/Kwanza celebration!

Ditto what SethG said -- great looking cake, Kevin. Maybe I missed it, but what sort of cake is under the pine cone leaves?

Thanks Lemon Curd. The gelee is pretty thin, actually, maybe 1/4 inch or so. I'm not sure what the best way to cut through this thing is. I suppose I'll try a serrated bread type knife first and see how that does.

Nice, nice nice! I am suddenly interested in black forest cake for the first time. Magnificent job, Lemon Curd.

Ok, I put together my charlotte tonight. I piped a disc of ladyfinger batter for the base. I only used one disc, but I made it pretty fat. I used two bands of ladyfingers for the border. Next time I will definately mark the parchment so I can keep the fingers exactly the same length. The ladyfinger batter was the same 'base recipe' version found in the Pierre Herme books: 5 yolks, 6 whites, 270 grams flour, 160 grams sugar. The whites are whipped to a stiff meringue with all but 2T of the sugar. Yolks are whisked with the 2T sugar. Yolk mixture, then flour, folded into whites. Pipe. Dust liberally with powdered sugar. Set out for 15 minutes, dust again lightly, bake at 450F for 8 minutes with door slightly ajar. The mousse started with 2C strawberry puree+2T lemon juice+1T framboise. Added 1.25C sugar, heated till dissolved into puree. 2 envelopes of gelatin were bloomed with water, then added to the puree. The puree was then cooled to room temp. Whipped 2.5C of cream, then folded puree into cream, then poured into ladyfinger-lined 10" springform. Let that set for an hour or so in the fridge. For the gelee/glaze, I used about 1C of puree, added about 1T each of lemon juice and framboise. Added to about 0.75C simple syrup (I used the syrup, rather than using puree alone, because I wanted a shinier, glassier look to the top). Added 1 envelope bloomed gelatin. Poured on top of mousse. Unfortunately I lost a little of the glaze down the side of the pan, because I didn't do a good enough job lining with the ladyfingers - I left a tiny gap between two bands. Also, I would have liked to have garnished with some pretty strawberries, but we had 10" of snow and the one grocery I could get to today didnt have any worth buying. I've tasted all the components, and the taste I am happy with, but I'll have to wait till tomorrow to actually have a slice. Thanks to everyone for the advice!

LemonCurd, I can't get the pics to display. Im getting an error message.

It might not be what you're looking for, but my personal favorite citrus dessert is Marcel Desaulnier's citrus squares with white chocolate icing from his Celebrate With Chocolate, which includes 1/4C orange zest and 1T lime zest. The recipe calls for 2/3C lemon juice, but I always use 1/2 cup lemon juice and make up the difference with orange juice. So, so, good.