Pandolce Genovese (Genoese Sweet Christmas Bread)

Pandolce Genovese is a Genoese sweet bread, very similar to Panettone Milanese but heavier, denser, not as risen and circular in shape while Panettone is very well-known of it fluffy lightness texture and tall dome in shape, in which it dough raised three times over a twenty-hours period or more. Like Panettone, Pandolce is a traditional Christmas dessert.



















Thanks to Diego and Moreno for this cute Christmas reindeer soft toy that bought from Finland. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All...

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm milk
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp dry instant yeast or 15 g fresh yeast
60 g butter
1 egg (additional 3 egg yolks will soften the bread texture and reduce the dryness)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon zest
2 cups all purpose flour (tipo o)
1/4 cup cake flour
8 tbsp raisin, soaked
4 tbsp diced dried mango (original recipe calls for citron and candied orange)
4 tbsp diced dried plums
20 g pine nuts

Method:

Grease a cake pan (18 cm in diameter) with butter; set aside (for hemisphere shape Pandolce, simply use smaller cake pan or double up the recipe).

Dissolve yeast in warm milk, leave for 10 minutes or till foamy.

In a large bowl, cream butter with sugar, salt and lemon zest till pale, thick and glossy.

Add-in egg and whisk till completely incorporated.

In another large bowl, mix together flours, make a hole in the center of flours mixture, pour-in slowly the yeast solution, gradually add-in the butter mixture.

Knead the mixture for 10 minutes to form a homogeneous dough.

Add-in raisins, dried mango, dried plums and nuts, gently knead the dough to well-spread the fillers.

Transfer dough to the prepared pan, form dough into circular shape and leave dough at warm corner covered to rise for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 200 °C.

With a knife, make a triangle cut on top of dough.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of cake comes out clean.

Remove from oven, and set aside to cool completely.