Panettone is the Christmas cake par excellence in Italy. It originated in Milan, where it used to be "consumed" all year round, and now enriches the Christmas season in all Italian regions, from north to south. There is no home without panettone, it is brought or given as a gift when people visit, but above all it is eaten. It is dunked in the morning latte and it sweetens the time after dinner, in short, every moment and every occasion is suitable to "devour" some of it!

La Vialla's panettone is slightly different from the traditional ones. It is a soft fragrant yeast cake, rich in sultanas and orange peel, but among the ingredients you will not find butter, only extra virgin olive oil.

The recipe is not difficult, but it does require a little time! However, once it is taken out of the oven, the preparation time will have no comparison with the "consumption time" of this delicious and fragrant cake! Therefore, for those who have a large crowd of foodies at the table, we recommend doubling (or tripling) the amount of ingredients and baking two (or three) panettone at a time.

Sourdough:

Grate the apple (or crush the other fruit) and mix with the ingredients until you have a uniform dough. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 48 hours at 28°C in a moderately humid environment. At home, you can use the oven to do this by turning on the light and putting in a small soup bowl with some water, which will evaporate slowly and evenly. If it is a particularly rainy and humid day, you can leave the water out. After this time, the dough will have about tripled in size and you can "refresh" it with about 7 ml of mineral water. Then let it rest again for 4 hours at 28°C. Now press the excess water out of the dough and it is finally ready to prepare the panettone.

Today, sourdough or natural yeast is used in the preparation of cakes that need to rise for a longer period of time. In the past, there was only this kind of yeast and it was respected like a mother (in Italy, sourdough is called "pasta madre", mother dough), the mother of all baking recipes. Housewives guarded it almost with reverence; like a nurse to children, it was handed down from family to family and thus gradually "renewed".

You can prepare a little more of it and use some of this "magic" yeast for other recipes (for a good loaf of bread, for example). All you have to do is keep it in a screw-top jar in the fridge and "refresh" it before using it as described above (as housewives used to do here in the old days).

Pre-dough:

Gradually add the flour and oil to the sourdough, kneading constantly, and work the mixture for 15 minutes. Then add one egg yolk at a time (the eggs should be taken out of the fridge half an hour beforehand) as well as the sugar and agave syrup and mix thoroughly.

Knead until the dough has a moist, compact and elastic consistency. This takes about 25 minutes. Now let it rise for 5-6 hours at 25°C until it has tripled in volume. To facilitate the rising, you can place the dough in a cold oven and only turn on the light; this creates a kind of "incubation chamber".

Main dough:

Gradually add the oil to the pre-dough and knead it. Then also add the egg yolks one by one, the agave syrup, the sultanas (soak in lukewarm water for half an hour beforehand, drain and dry), the grated orange zest, the malt and the inside of the vanilla pod. Knead for another 25-30 minutes until the dough is smooth, soft and elastic again and leave to rise again for 6 hours at 25°C.

Now shape your panettone (or panettones) with about 750 g of dough and place it in the baking paper-lined tin or baking sleeve (the paper will also help to "hang" the cake). Cut the surface crosswise and leave to rise again for an hour. Then bake for 45-50 minutes at 180°C in a preheated oven. If it darkens too quickly, reduce the temperature; but never open the oven!

When the panettone is ready, let it rest for a few hours with the surface down to dry, so that it keeps its typical puffy shape: take a higher and wider pot, pierce the cake through the baking paper or the sleeve with two skewers (made of iron or wood) and hang it upside down in the pot. As soon as it is dry, it is ready.