Panettone

This bread actually comes with a cute story.

Ah!  I'm all allergies.  And I'm dressed like a poorly dressed painter.  It's Sunday.  Hi.

So, I've actually had panettone before.  Like every year for Christmas, some distributor my dad orders from gives him one.  I haven't been a fan of this panettone.  So, hopefully this will go better.  But, as it includes both fruits and nuts, I have a feeling it's going to be another french toast bread.  Which is fine.  Pancakes and french toast make excellent lunches to bring to work.  I suggest it for everyone.

Panettone begins with barm.  This is my first barm bread you all are witnessing.  However, as my family can attest, barm is one of the most annoying things ever.  It takes like eight billion days to make.  Luckily, however, I still had my barm from the last time I made a dough starting with wild yeast.  I put my life on the line for this barm, people.  I mean, our fridge broke down.  My barm was in the freezer, slowly melting.  Luckily, it was the dead of winter, so I shoved open the screen on my window and left it outside until our fridge was fixed.  And there it remained, surviving in the womb of our freezer.  My screen is still injured from this process.  But so, it was fairly simple to refresh.  When I was thinking about doing this blog, I was looking at other bread blogs, and someone had named their barm.  NAMED.  That's how near and dear it is to bakers' hearts.  Although barm and I are def frenemies, if not enemies.

Look how it seethes!

So, I only needed half a cup of this.  The rest freezes again until we make sourdough bread together!  Or if some other bread requires barm.  Hopefully not.

So!  Barm + milk + all purpose flour =

Yeah, it looks like nothing.  My kitchen is super dark.  So, flashy flash, ya know?

Stirred up!

This sits for four hours.  I know, right?

Meanwhile, in the depths of marshlands among the feral alligators and wildcats festers a completely different creature . . .

The gross portion of this bread aka the dried fruit.  This is golden raisins + some mixed fruit thing I got from the grocery store + triple sec + lemon extract + vanilla extract =

And the fruit sits out all night to absorb ish.

Four hours later!

You know, True Blood is supposed to be super hot, and B and I are watching the first season now, but I have to say none of the characters are particularly appealing to me.  Although, I am reading the books, and Alcide hasn't shown up yet at this point in the show, so I'm pulling for him.

So, until tomorrow, sponge and dried fruit mixture!  Until tomorrow!

Hello.  Good morning.  Actually, good evening.  We back.  With flour + sugar + salt + yeast =

Today, I made cookies with my kids at work and they were like, why do we put salt in cookies?  Gross! And yeah.  I was like, dude.  How many people don't make cookies at home?  Man.  Poor kids.

+ sponge + egg =

Stirry stir with a little bit of water:

And this sits for twenty minutes so the gluten can relax.  It's like those little mucuses and that athlete's foot commercial.  I just imagine little glutens relaxing in a Turkish bath.

Twenty minutes and + butter + dried fruit mixture =

Colorful!  Too often my pictures are so beige.  Ew.  'Tis the nature of bread, I suppose.  Perhaps one day I should include some food coloring?

Looks gross.  All buttery and ew.  But, actually, this picture kind of looks like ambrosia or something.  Tasty.  Oh Cool Whip salads, you are so amazing.

Back to blah.  Kneaded dough plus almonds.  It's like being super minimalist, basically.

Smash.  Crash.  BLAST!  All pummeled down to RISE forever.  This is a very time-consuming bread in that there are a lot of rising-ish things.  Time to wait.  Time to read about Muslim backstage sluts (SOML).  Yeah, binary binary you think you're so great but you're not.  We get it.  <3 academic lens.

Two hours.  We'll get six cups.  See you.

It is now 8:30pm.  This bread = taking for-ev-ver.  Seriously.  Tony really <3ed this girl, apparently.

So, normally, panettone is baked like this:

In a little round six-inch pan surrounded by special paper or a bootleg rendition using parchment paper (which I really should just get from the grocery story -- idk why I'm holding out).  But, I don't have a little round six-inch pan, nor, as mentioned, do I have parchment paper.  Hence:

My standby, the sandwich loaf.  It's great esp for the inevitability of French toast, although B mentioned he <3s panettone.  Whatevs.  How is that POSSIBLE, people?  Apparently I've been eating it wrong though.  It's supposed to be thin or something.  Idk, ask him.

It is now 10:30pm.  Doesn't Peter know I have to wake up and find some inane lesson plan for kids who will inevitably not pay attention no matter how hard I try to make the lesson awesome?!  Some of us aren't full time bread bakers, Pete, especially for fruit-and-nut bread.  Dough:

Oven.  FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF.  That's right, people.  I'll be up until midnight working with this thing.  I'm a working woman now, okay.  This isn't okay.  Especially since I finished my book detailing the sexual escapades of a woman who can sell a book about the empoweringness of groupie sex just because she was born in Iran.  Because being born in Iran is like second wave, you know?  It's like America in the 1700s or something.  nbd.

Done!

But, you actually won't be reading this now.  Because this needs to sit for two hours before being cut open.  Swear, this is such elitist bread.  So!  Since it's midnight, I'll cut it tomorrow and there you are-ow (Aro?)!

Something good happens, we say mashallah; something bad happens, que sera sera.

Aur yahan hai!

And this is something good.  Or okay.  I mean, it's good bread, but my aversion to cooked dried fruit is preventing me from fully liking it.  So, it's very difficult to rate.  Well, I guess I'd say a 3/5.  Now that it's 8am on the third day of working with this bread.  Oh well, que sera sera!  <3