Greenstein's Bakery - BB - Golden Orange Panettone with Chocolate Sauce

ב''ה

This is the first time I've tried panettone. It tastes like brioche with fruit.

This recipe was a bit piecemeal over a few days so no mis en place.

'Omi-girl' was with me for moral support.

Don't ask me to tell you difference between three day biga and one day biga. I don't know. I can not tell the difference.

This is 'three-day' biga in water.

This is the soaker. I made it the day of. I'll admit the recipe seemed a bit drawn out. I snipped out an hour here and there.

Final dough recipe. I don't think I could find where it says to put in the salt.

Monica mentioned that she thought the bread was not sweet enough. I added an extra tablespoon of corn-syrup. 

I simply left the dough to rise and mixed in the raisins and home-made candied orange peel.

The brioche mold seemed appropriate. I skipped all the waiting in the fridge parts. 'Three days in the fridge to 'harden and mature' before baking.' Say what? I did give it a second rise though, once in the brioche mold. Also, this dough was also way too wet to knead and fold which is how I remember the dough from Rose's brioche recipe from Heavenly Cakes.

Here is the candied orang-peel process. Thanks to Vicki for letting us know about this recipe from 'Kate'.

Scrape the pith.

Simmer and drain thrice.

Julienne

Watch carefully and simmer with the sugar and water until your wife calls you down stairs.

 When you come back upstairs, it has duly started to burn. We will call it 'caramelized.'

My wife redeemed herself by teaching me how if you put the bottom of the pot in cold water, much of the burnt part sticks to the bottom and separates from the rest.

I did not have time to wait for the raisins to soak for hours so, after I poured off the liquid to use in the final dough, I soaked the raisins again in hot water for 15 minutes so they would be soft.

I ended up soaking the candied-orange peel in hot water as well since I did not want  to bite into hard-candy when I bit into the bread.

  I added some of the sweet-water left over from the candied-orange soak into the dough mixture in hopes of making it just a tad sweeter.

Toaster shot.

Toaster explosion shot. 

Divide and conquer.

The top of the big one was a bit funky.

Looks great from this angle though. :)

Crumb the mini.

Crumb the large. These were cut open while still warm. I would have enjoyed more raisins.

It was definitely better with chocolate. It might be nice to fold chocolate chips into the dough.