Panettone italian cake

6 servings
5 hours

Prepare the products. For this recipe, I would strongly recommend using kitchen scales, accuracy is very important here. Therefore, yolks are given in grams, not in the number of eggs. All products should be at room temperature, remove eggs and oil in advance from the refrigerator. In addition to lemon, you can also take an orange.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Be sure to do this, sifting oxygenates the flour, which makes the baking airy. Plus removes unnecessary impurities that may end up in flour.

Add all other dry ingredients to the flour - sugar, vanilla sugar and dry yeast. If you have taken fresh yeast, then do not add them now, they will then go to liquid ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients well with a whisk.

In another bowl, mix the egg yolks and honey. 150 grams is about 8 yolks of eggs of the zero category, but they must be weighed and measured in an even amount. Heat the milk of that warm state so that the finger lowered into it feels pleasant heat, and not burned. Add the milk to the yolks, mix well. If you use fresh yeast, then add them at this stage.

Next, combine both mixtures by pouring the liquid ingredients into the dry ones. Stir the mixture with a whisk. If you have a mixer with dough attachments, it is better to take it, with a whisk or hands it will also work, but it will be long and hard. I'm not looking for easy ways, so I knead my hands.

When both mixtures are more or less mixed, start adding soft butter in portions. Intervene it until the test is completely homogeneous (homogeneous). It took me about 10 minutes with my hands.

Remove the zest from the lemon. Rinse the lemon previously well with soda and brush to remove the protective wax rally. The zest is the top thin layer of peel that goes to the white layer. Remove it with a fine grater. Rub the lemon gently to avoid taking off the next white layer, which is mustard. If you also took an orange, then remove the zest from it. Add the zest to the dough. Keep kneading it for another 5 minutes.

When the dough is smooth, pack it into a ball. It will remain sticky, use a silicone spatula. Cover the bowl with cling film or lid and remove the dough to lift to a warm place. I heated the oven to 50C, then waited a bit and put the dough there. If you have warm batteries, then put it next to you. The main thing is that there are no drafts.

While the dough is rising, prepare the dried fruits. Rinse the raisins and candied fruits well in a colander, and then pour a little boiling water. Add cognac there. Instead of cognac, you can use rum, whiskey or other strong aromatic alcohol. Leave it all soaking up for a few hours.

The dough should grow very much and all go bubbles. It can take 3 to 6 hours, depending on the temperature and yeast you use. Mine stood for 4 hours.

Start kneading again. The dough will fall off a lot, do not be afraid of this. Again, I'll recommend a mixer. I had to knead my hands for about 20 minutes, the mixer would have coped with the 5-10. It is necessary to ensure that the dough does not tear when stretching, but stretches for some time.

When this is achieved, add raisins and candied fruits. They must first be reclined on a sieve and let the liquid drain. Mix well.

Take the baking molds. I baked in paper, nothing needs to be done with them. Grease others with a thin layer of vegetable oil. Put the dough in the forms, filling them with one third. I came out with two large molds, but it was possible to decompose into three. And even better to take not large, but small, then about 4 will come out. The dough is quite heavy, and in small cakes it will bake better and faster.

Return the dough again, already in molds, to the heat. I turned on the oven again at 50 ° C, turned it off, waited a little, and put a baking sheet with molds in it. The dough will have to grow again, it will take an hour and a half. It was warm to mine, it grew like this in an hour.

Next, turn on the oven 180 ° C, top-bottom mode. If your cakes were already in the oven, then you can not take them out, but warm them up with them. Bake the cakes for 25-30 minutes. If your cakes are large, like mine, then increase the time to 40-45 minutes. If the top starts to brown too much, cover it with foil circles. Remove the ready-made cakes and cool. If you wish, cover them with any glaze, it will be convenient to make it from the remaining proteins.