Panettone

This month's 'Fresh from the Oven' challenge is Panettone, hosted by Sarah of Maison Cupcake. Traditionally Panettone is naturally leavened, i.e. it uses a starter/culture instead of dried/ instant yeast to make the bread rise. So I decided to make it to this recipe which seemed to authentic and quite easy to follow. It involves bulking up a sourdough starter for 5 days prior to making the Panettone. I have to say I didn't choose the most straight-forward recipe, in addition to the 5 days needed to get the starter ready it then needs 12 hours for the 'first dough' to ferment and 12 hours for the 'final dough' to rise. However I am a great believer in 'Slow food' so I was prepared to give it a go, although I was slightly nervous about it as I had never made Panettone before! I was pleased with the results, I got 3 small breads and they do taste authentic even if the look a little, er, rustic. The two nicest ones will be gifts and I am keeping the mushroom looking one as a taster :-)

Cooking notes:
-The recipe calls for diastatic malt powder, I have never seen this before so took a gamble and used 1tsp barley malt - it seemed to work!
-I used sultanas and soaked them in rum and cointreau for 12 hours (whilst the first dough was fermenting)
-I didn't bother buying proper Panettone moulds, I lined large tinned tomato tins with greaseproof paper which worked well. 
-I was going to attempt to hang the breads upside down to cool as recommended in the recipe, but when I got mine out of the oven they looked a bit too fragile to undergo this treatment. I laid them down on a wire rack to cool and removed them from their tins after 15 minutes.

The dough after 12 hours rising

The glaze and sugar dusting

Before going in the oven

The mushroom shaped one!