Pandoro
A Christmas cake from Verona that differs from panettone in two ways: it contains no dried fruit at all, and noticeably more butter. The name means "golden bread" and refers to the colour of the crumb, which comes from eight egg yolks. The difficulty is patience: the butter goes in in three additions, each after the last is fully absorbed, and the whole thing, overnight starter included, rises for more than twenty hours.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Starter 720 min
- Main dough 40 min
- Rising 300 min
- Rising in the mould 240 min
- Baking 50 min
- Cooling 120 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneMake the starter and leave it overnight
Mix the starter flour with the lukewarm milk, 2 g of yeast and the sugar, cover and leave 12 hours at room temperature. A small amount of yeast is enough overnight — the starter should rise and smell faintly tangy, not collapse. It builds the flavour and strength needed to lift a very heavy dough.
Ingredients: 100 g bread flour · 60 ml milk · 2 g fresh yeast · 15 g sugar
Knead the dough with yolks and sugar
Crumble the remaining 15 g of yeast into the cream. Combine the starter with the flour, the yeasted cream, yolks, eggs, sugar, vanilla seeds, zest and salt and knead 15 minutes, until smooth and elastic. The gluten must develop before the butter goes in — afterwards it is much harder.
Ingredients: 400 g bread flour · 15 g fresh yeast · 8 pcs egg yolks · 2 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 250 g butter · 60 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs vanilla · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt
Add the butter in three additions
Add the soft butter in three additions, each after the previous is fully absorbed, kneading 5 minutes between them. The dough first falls apart, then comes back together — normal, and it happens every time.
Ingredients: 400 g bread flour · 15 g fresh yeast · 8 pcs egg yolks · 2 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 250 g butter · 60 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs vanilla · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt
Butter in three goes — the dough breaks and recovers.Rise until tripled
Cover and leave 5 hours, until the dough has tripled in volume. A dough this rich rises very slowly — sugar and fat hold the yeast back. Do not force it above 26°C, or the butter renders out.
Ingredients: 400 g bread flour · 15 g fresh yeast · 8 pcs egg yolks · 2 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 250 g butter · 60 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs vanilla · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt
Shape a ball and put it in the mould
Knock the dough back, shape a smooth ball and place it in a thoroughly buttered pandoro mould (about 1 kg size), seam up — the smooth side of the ball sits at the bottom of the mould and becomes the top once the pandoro is turned out. Every corner must be greased — pandoro sticks precisely in the points of the star.
Ingredients: 30 g butter · 60 g icing sugar
Prove in the mould four hours
Leave 4 hours, until the dough reaches the very rim of the mould. Towards the end, heat the oven to 180°C. This is the longest prove and the most important — under-proved pandoro will not fill the points and bakes with rounded corners.
Ingredients: 400 g bread flour · 15 g fresh yeast · 8 pcs egg yolks · 2 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 250 g butter · 60 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs vanilla · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt
Dough at the rim — only then into the oven.Bake at falling temperature
Set the mould on the lowest shelf and bake 10 minutes at 180°C, then 40 minutes at 160°C, until a skewer pushed into the centre comes out dry. The initial heat gives the rise, the lower heat cooks the centre without burning the top. If the top darkens too fast, cover it with foil.
Ingredients: 400 g bread flour · 15 g fresh yeast · 8 pcs egg yolks · 2 pcs eggs · 150 g sugar · 250 g butter · 60 ml whipping cream (30%) · 1 pcs vanilla · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt
Cool and dust with sugar
Turn out after 10 minutes and cool at least 2 hours on a rack, until completely cold. Before serving, put the pandoro in a large bag with the icing sugar and shake it — the easiest way to coat all eight points evenly.
Ingredients: 30 g butter · 60 g icing sugar
Sugar in a bag and a shake — it coats every point.
Before you start
The mould is essential
The eight-pointed pandoro tin is the only route to this shape and is sold in baking supply shops. A tall loaf tin will bake the dough, but the result is a sweet loaf rather than a pandoro.
Cutting in horizontal slices
Pandoro is cut horizontally into star-shaped slices about 2 cm thick. Stacked with the points offset they form a Christmas tree — a common way to serve it at the holidays.
A week in a bag
Wrapped in film and bagged, pandoro keeps a week. Going stale it makes excellent buttered toast or a base for zuppa inglese or a tiramisu-style dessert.
