Easy Panettone Recipe (Italian Christmas Bread) (2024)

This panettone recipe (Italian Christmas bread) produces a rich, buttery, sweet bread, light in texture and studded with a mixture of candied fruit.

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Panettone is a sweet Italian bread traditionally enjoyed during the Christmas holidays.

Of course, this bread was never served during the holidays at our Italian family gatherings. When I mentioned to my aunts that I was going to try and make this bread, I received “what is that?”. UGH!

So, I didn’t have a family recipe that had been passed down for generations and had to do a lot of research to arrive at this recipe I’m sharing with you today.

Try our Chocolate Orange Panettone recipe!

Why You’ll Love This

Fresh from the oven panettone is so much fresher and tastier than store-bought! It’s easy to make once you know how and makes great holiday gifts.

It’s a soft, sweet, buttery brioche-like bread filled with dried fruits and citrus.

I labored over this recipe, so you don’t have to; all you need is patience.

Looking for more delicious Christmas recipes? Try our cut-out eggnog cookies, Italian sesame cookies, Italian fig cookies, Panettone French Toast, and eggnog cheesecake with gingersnap crust.

How to Make a Light and Fluffy Panettone Recipe

I’m a little hesitant to share this recipe with you because it takes patience and planning. This is a three-day panettone bread recipe.

Also, the dough is very sticky and somewhat cumbersome to work with, but if you are determined (like I was), you can turn out a fluffy panettone bread too!

I can’t even count how many panettonesI made in testing this panettone recipe. At one point, my husband said, “it’s time to put a bow on this one”. There was no way I was giving up on this panettone recipe!

Day One ( the night before)

Make the starter by mixing 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/3 cup water, and 1/8 teaspoon yeast in a medium-sized bowl. Cover and let rise overnight.

The starter will help add volume and flavor and make the finished bread stay fresher for a little longer.

It will end up looking like this:

Day two

Measure the flour properly (spoon and swoop) into a medium-size bowl. Whisk the salt into the flour and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, proof the 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast with the 1/4 cup of warm (115º degrees F) water for about 5-10 minutes until frothy on top.

Add the eggs, vanilla, sugar, and orange and lemon zest, to the yeast mixture and whisk together.

Add the starter and flour, attach the dough hook and mix until it comes together and starts pulling away from the bowl slightly.

Turn the mixer to medium speed and knead for 10-15 minutes or until smooth and elastic. You may need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides a few times.

This dough will not come together fully and completely pull away from the sides of the bowl like standard white bread dough.

Add the room-temperature butter and knead for about 10-15 minutes or until it’s fully incorporated. Again you may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead JUST ENOUGH flour into it until it’s not EXTREMELY sticky and slightly easier to handle.

The less flour you can use, the lighter and fluffier your panettone will be once baked.

A bench scraper will help you tremendously with this process. Please don’t add too much flour, and be patient with the dough.

Place the dough in a large oiled bowl. Oil the top of the dough, cover it with plastic wrap, and allow it to rise for 3 to 4 hours or until tripled in size.

The dough-rising process is long. Patience is key.

Don’t go by the time when rising; watch it closely, and move on to the next step once tripled.

Punch the dough down gently, and remove the dough from the bowl to a lightly floured surface. Again only knead in enough flour to help you handle the dough a little easier.

Place it in a one-gallonzip-top bag or another bowl covered with plastic. Place in the refrigerator overnight. The slow rise in the refrigerator overnight develops more flavor and makes the dough easier to shape.

In a small bowl, combine the dried fruit with the orange liqueur (I use Grand Marnier.) and let soak overnight.

I find the bag much easier to make room in the fridge for and just tear open the sides to remove the dough the next day.

UPDATE: While in the process of writing this post, I decided to try to make this in 2 days. It worked perfectly. So if you don’t have the time to do three days, make the starter early in the morning. Let it sit for at least 6 hours. It needs to be bubbly and risen.

Then make the dough and let it rise for 3-4 hours. Transfer to a plastic zip-lock bag and refrigerate overnight or for at least 12 hours. Then continue with the rest of the steps.

Day Three

It will rise in the refrigerator and look like the above photo. This step helps improve flavor and texture.

If you used a plastic bag, just rip it down the sides to open and place the dough on a very lightly floured surface.

Because the dough is cold, it is MUCH easier to handle during this step and won’t require much flour at all. I have actually done it without any flour, and it worked beautifully.

Press and roll the dough out into a rectangle. Drain any extra liqueur from the fruit and sprinkle the soaked raisins and fruit evenly over the dough.

Roll the dough up tightly, folding the ends inwards.

Once rolled, fold the ends into the center and fold and tuck it around to shape the dough into a ball trying to keep a good bit of dough on top.

Transfer the dough into a greased panettone mold(I buy them from Amazon) and place it on a baking sheet. You can also use a metal panettone pan.

Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until almost to the top of the paper mold for about 3 to 4 hours or until almost tripled in size again.Remember the dough is cold, so it will take a while to rise.

I keep our house between 65º-68º, which is not ideal for bread making. Sowhile forming the dough, I heat my oven to about 150º, turn it off and turn the oven light on.

Once the dough is formed, I place it in the oven to rise.

In the last couple of panettone testing I made, it only took about 2 1/2 hours for it to rise completely.

Just before it’s completely risen, remove the dough from the oven (if that’s where you placed it to rise) and preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Before baking, brush the dough gently with the egg wash over the entire surface.

Cut a “cross” in the top about 1/4-1/2″ deep with a very sharp knife. Place a dab of softened butter in the center of the cross.

This step will help it rise properly and help achieve the dome shape.

Bake the bread for 40-45 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

If it starts to brown too much, lightly tent it with a piece of aluminum foil.

While the bread is baking, prepare a way to hang it upside down to cool. This helps keep its light, fluffy texture and keeps it from falling.

I use the bowl from my stand mixer. If using a bowl, be sure it’s deep enough that the top of the bread isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl.

Once baked, carefully slide two skewers through each side of the bottom of the bread. Turn the panettone upside down into the prepared place to let it cool for at least 2 hours.

I’ve seen people hang the bread between two chairs! Yikes, that scared me, so I opted for the deep bowl.

Slice and enjoy the fruits of your three-day baking adventure by making this panettone recipe!

Just look at that light, fluffy bread studded with raisins and candied orange peel (candied citron).

I thoroughly enjoyed making this bread over and over again. I know it’s traditional Christmas bread, but I don’t think I can wait for just once a year.

Our favorite way to eat panettone is toasted and slathered with butter!

Tips

• Panettone is traditionally a long-ferment or sourdough-based bread. You can use the starter recipe in the card below, or if you already have a sourdough starter, you can use that as well. Either works great!
• Avoid adding too much flour. It will make the bread dense. Measure the flour correctly, aerate, spoon, and swoop level.
• Use room-temperature eggs and butter.
• I use good quality European butter for the best panettone. If you are going to go the effort, use good quality ingredients.
• Refrigerating the dough to rise and ferment truly develops a lot more flavor.
• I use metal skewers to hang the bread. I tried wooden ones on my first test panettone, and they started to break. The fear set in, and I immediately switched to metal.
• Using double pans when baking helps to prevent the bottom from browning too much.
• Pierce the cooling bread with two long metal skewers about 1 inch from the base, and hang it upside down to cool completely. This will prevent the bread from collapsing while cooling.

Variations

• Bread flour works great too.
• Mix and match the dried fruits. Use any combination you desire.
• Toss in some semi-sweet chocolate chips.
• Sprinkle the top of the panettone with pearl sugar before baking.

FAQs

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