Your New Favorite Christmas Bread
the joy of rustic, homemade loaf-pan panettone
Hello my dear friends,
Oh! If I could just bottle the joy I feel when this bread comes out of the oven! Well, I’d be mighty happy. The fragrance alone, often with ripples of orange and spice floating through the air, is enough to drive my family into a sweet-toothed frenzy. I shared yesterday over on Instagram a sentiment about my Mother and the joy that she brought to her home in various ways (baking beautiful and delicious treats included). As we explored the value of home in the comment section, someone used the word “safety” and I think that was such a beautiful sentiment. Though my mother worked outside the home, she had Fridays off. We could come home to a sparkling clean house, a stocked refrigerator, and the weekend to look forward to. Every single Friday felt like a treat.
When all is right in the world, home is a place of nourishment and joy. It is a place that shapes our souls and ultimately chisels us into the person that we become. At the best of times, home is a place of deep-reaching safety.
I do not think it’s hyperbolic to correlate the smell of fresh baked bread (especially a beautiful chocolate studded Christmas bread) with safety. Bread has a way about it, doesn’t it?
While my Italian audience would recognize this Christmas Bread as Panettone, I feared that using Italian verbiage would be a deterrent. And I want nothing more than for you to actually make this bread.
So we will call this traditional Italian panettone ‘Christmas Bread’ instead. And to encourage you even further, I have tucked it into a standard loaf pan instead of a traditional panettone pan.
As you mix in tablespoons of butter, separate egg yolks, and choose which delicious and fragrant additions you’ll stir into the dough, I hope it brings you joy. I hope that when the warm loaves are pulled, golden and rich, from the oven they bring you and all who are in the presence of them a sense of anticipation, of pleasure, and of safety.
Tonight you will eat well. And the provision of daily bread is all any of us could hope for.
As always, your shares, subscribes, likes, and kind comments mean the world to us - thank you!
Christmas Bread
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For the pre-ferment
3 tablespoons warm water
½ teaspoon active dry yeast
½ cup bread flour
For the initial bread
2 ¼ cup bread flour, einkorn flour, or flour of choice
⅔ cup water
½ cup maple sugar or sugar of choice
7 egg yolks
15 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
For the final bread
½ cup bread flour
3 tablespoons maple sugar or sugar of choice
2 teaspoons sea salt
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3.5 ounces chocolate, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
1/2 cup currants
Combine all of the pre-ferment ingredients together in a small bowl. Stir well to combine. Cover and let sit in a warm place for a few hours.
Add the paddle attachment to a stand mixer to make the initial bread. Add in the pre-ferment, bread flour, water, maple sugar, and egg yolks. Mix on low speed until the ingredients are combined. Once they are, increase the speed to medium-high and allow the mixer to run for 6-7 minutes as it develops the dough. The dough should begin to pull away from the side of the mixer. Once this happens, add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Allow each tablespoon to be mixed in before adding the next. The dough should be smooth.
Cover the dough well, and set it aside at room temperature overnight (or at least 12 hours).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Add the dough hook onto your mixer. To the mixing bowl still containing the bread dough, add in the final measurement of bread flour, sugar, sea salt, and egg yolks. Mix on low for 2 minutes. Add in the additional butter, one tablespoon at a time.
Finally, add in the vanilla extract, chocolate pieces, hazelnuts, and currants. Mix for 5 additional minutes until the dough is glossy and soft.
Transfer the dough into two standard loaf pans (oiled and lined with parchment paper for easy removal). Cover and set it aside somewhere warm to rise for an additional 2 hours (the dough should rise to about 1” below the top of the pan).
Bake for 1 hour, rotating as needed to ensure an even bake.
Let the bread cool completely before slicing.
Cheers,
Shaye