Bento po česku

I have seen panettoni in the shops but never actually tasted them, so I was looking forward to this challenge. It turned out to be quite challenging.

I started with a sponge: I mixed 7 grams of instant yeast in 80 ml warm water and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Then, I mixed in 70 grams of all-purpose flour.

I let it stand for 25 minutes and in the meantime, I prepared the yeast for the first dough: I mixed 7 grams of instant yeast with 45 ml warm water and let it stand.

This is how it looked after 25 minutes.

I poured the sponge into the bowl with the yeast and added 175 grams of all-purpose flour, 2 eggs and 55 grams of brown sugar.

I mixed it all in a mixer with a paddle attachment and added 115 grams of softened margarine.

The first dough looked nice.

I let the first dough stand for an hour so that it doubled in size.

Next, I added 2 eggs and 3 yolks to the dough. I also added 150 grams of white sugar, 3 tablespoons of honey, some vanilla, lemon and orange essences and salt.

I added 225 grams of room-temperature butter. You can clearly see that the butter did not mix well with the other ingredients.

But as soon as I started adding flour (420 grams), the dough started looking much better.

I kneaded some more flour by hand into the dough (about 100 grams) and when the dough held shape, I transferred it into an oiled bowl.

I let the dough rise for almost 4 hours. It should have tripled in size, but I don't think I got more than double.

Now I had to make my own panettone paper. I started with 6 strips of baking paper, arranged them in a star-shape and stapled them together.

I made the cylindrical shape with more baking paper and a stapler.

Next, I took half of the dough and pressed it out into a rectangle. I sprinkled 75 grams of dried cranberries and some almond slices over it.

I rolled the dough into a log and then folded the log into thirds.

I pressed the dough out again and sprinkled it with 50 grams of white chocolate, chopped.

I repeated the process with 50 grams of dark chocolate.

I rolled the dough into a log, folded again and put it in my panettone mold.

I repeated the whole process with the other half of the dough and the other half of the filling, only this time I divided the dough into 18 pieces and dropped each of them into a muffin cup.

I let the panettoni rise for about 2 hours, cut a cross into the tops and put a knob of butter there. I baked the big panettone for 10 minutes at 200 °C, then at 180 °C for 10 more minutes and finally at 160 °C for some 30 minutes.

It burned. But it's just the top and the bottom, everything in between turned out fine.

I let the big panettone cool down.

The mini-panettoni were baked at 160 °C for about 10 minutes and were just fine.

These were baked in silicone muffin cups at 160 °C for about 10 minutes and were fine as well.

This is one of the mini-panettoni. The crumb is good.

I let most of the panettoni cool down properly, but some were still snatched by my fiancé - or myself. Mmmm, warm baked goods...

These are the mini-panettoni.

This is the big panettone. It has a burnt top and it's not quite round, but that still doesn't mean that it is not good.

This is the big panettone on the inside. I really like the crumb, although some may find it too dense. There is a hole in the middle of the panettone that I cannot explain.

All in all, I really did like the panettone, but I am not sure that I will be making it again - too much work.