Panettone with Lievito Madre

Ingredients

Day 1 Refreshes (three rounds: morning, midday, afternoon)

• 50g (1/4 cup, packed) Lievito madre, ready and proven (per refresh)
• 50g (6 tbsp) Strong bread flour, per refresh (use 60g for the third refresh)
• 22g (1 tbsp + 1.5 tsp) Water, 80-85F, per refresh (use 27g for the third refresh)

Primo Impasto (Day 1, evening)

• 80g (1/3 cup, packed) Lievito madre, from the third refresh, at peak 28.1%
• 170g (1 1/3 cups + 1 tbsp) Strong bread flour (13-14.5% protein, W340+ if graded) 59.6%
• 85g (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) Water, 75-80F 29.8%
• 55g (1/4 cup + 1 tsp) Granulated sugar 19.3%
• 60g (3 large yolks) Egg yolks, room temperature 21.1%
• 65g (4 1/2 tbsp) Unsalted butter, softened 22.8%

Secondo Impasto (Day 2, morning)

• 515g (all of it) All of the primo impasto, tripled
• 60g (1/2 cup) Strong bread flour 21.1%
• 30g (2 1/2 tbsp) Granulated sugar 10.5%
• 20g (1 tbsp) Honey (acacia or orange blossom) 7%
• 55g (3 scant large yolks) Egg yolks, room temperature 19.3%
• 15g (1 tbsp) Water, 75-80F 5.3%
• 5g (scant 1 tsp) Fine sea salt 1.75%
• 1 bean (1 bean) Vanilla bean, seeds scraped
• 1 tbsp (1 tbsp (from 1 large orange)) Orange zest, finely grated
• 85g (6 tbsp) Unsalted butter, softened 29.8%

Fruit

• 90g (2/3 cup) Sultanas 31.6%
• 80g (1/2 cup) Candied orange peel, diced 28.1%
• 40g (1/4 cup) Candied citron, diced 14%
• 200g (3/4 cup + 1 tbsp) Warm water, for soaking the sultanas

Scarpatura

• 10g (2 tsp) Unsalted butter, cold

Equipment

Method

Day 1: Three Refreshes (Morning, midday, afternoon)

Everything in this recipe rests on the strength of your lievito madre. Three warm refreshes in one day wake it fully, wash out residual acid, and load it with active yeast right when the primo impasto needs it. If your madre isn't converted and proven yet, start with the lievito-madre-conversion guide; this recipe assumes it triples in 3-4 hours at 82F.

1. Morning refresh (around 8 AM). Cut 50g from the center of your madre. Knead it with 50g flour and 22g warm water for 2-3 minutes into a smooth, firm ball. Score an X, jar it, and hold at 82F. A SourHouse Goldie or the Brod & Taylor proofer holds this temperature exactly, and today of all days, exact matters.
2. Midday refresh (around 12 PM). The morning ball should have tripled, or close to it, with the X split wide. Repeat the refresh: 50g from the center, 50g flour, 22g water, back to 82F. Taste a pea-sized piece. Sweet with a gentle tang means you're on course.
3. Afternoon refresh (around 4 PM). One more round, sized up so you have enough for tonight: 50g madre, 60g flour, 27g water. Jar it at 82F. In 3-4 hours it will be at peak, tripled and fragrant, and that's your cue to mix the first dough. While it rises, soak the sultanas in the warm water, then drain and spread them on a towel to dry.

Tip: Each refresh should triple a little faster than the last. If the third one is sluggish, stop. Give it another refresh tomorrow morning and push the bake a day. The madre decides when you bake, and a calm baker listens.

Day 1, Evening: Primo Impasto (Mix around 8 PM, ferment overnight)

The first dough carries most of the flour and the whole night's work. Your only leavening is the madre, so the mixing has to give it a strong, extensible home. Take your time. This is a 25-minute mix, and every minute earns its keep.

1. Dissolve the madre. Tear the peaked madre into small pieces in the mixer bowl. Add the water and sugar and mix on low for 2 minutes until the pieces soften and the mixture looks milky. This distributes the culture evenly before the flour tightens everything up.
2. Build the dough. Add the flour and yolks. Mix on low for 5 minutes until combined, then on medium for 8-10 minutes. The dough is ready for butter when it pulls cleanly off the bowl, wraps around the hook, and stretches to a windowpane you can see shadows through. Gluten first, butter second, always.
3. Butter in stages. Add the softened butter a tablespoon at a time on medium-low, letting each addition vanish before the next. About 6 minutes. Finish with 2 minutes on medium until the dough is smooth, glossy, and elastic, with a finished temperature no higher than 78F.
4. Ferment overnight, 10-12 hours at 76-79F. Round the dough into a straight-sided container, mark the starting level, and cover. Hold it at 76-79F overnight; the Brod & Taylor proofer at 77F is made for this job. By morning it must be tripled. Tripled is the gate to Day 2, and there is no arguing with it. If it's short at hour 12, give it up to 2-3 more hours before you even think about mixing.

Tip: Mark the triple line on the container with tape before bed: starting height times three. At 6 AM you want a fact, not an opinion.

Day 2, Morning: Secondo Impasto (The second dough and the aromatics)

The tripled first dough is alive, slack, and slightly sweet-smelling. Now it takes on the rest of its riches in strict order: flour to rebuild strength, then sugars, then yolks, then salt and aromatics, then butter, then fruit. The order isn't tradition for its own sake. Each addition is timed to what the gluten can absorb.

1. Rebuild the strength. Scrape the tripled primo impasto into the mixer with the new flour. Knead on medium for 10 minutes until the dough tightens, gathers on the hook, and cleans the bowl again. It will look too wet for the first few minutes. Keep going; it comes together, every time.
2. Sugars, then yolks, then salt and aromatics. Add the sugar and honey; mix 2 minutes until absorbed. Add the yolks in two additions with the water, kneading each in fully. Then the salt, vanilla seeds, and orange zest, with 2 more minutes of mixing. The dough should stay smooth and strong throughout; if it starts to shine with grease or tear, pause and knead without additions until it recovers.
3. Butter in three stages, then the final windowpane. Add the softened butter in three additions on medium-low, each fully absorbed before the next, 8 minutes or so. Then the test that decides the crumb: stretch a piece slowly with buttered fingers. It should give you a pane thin enough to read through, silky and unbroken. This dough ferments six more hours and climbs a paper wall; it needs that membrane. Knead in 2-minute bursts until you have it.
4. Fold in the fruit. On low, add the dried sultanas, candied orange, and citron. One to two minutes, just to even distribution, and stop. Then turn the dough out onto a buttered counter and rest it, loosely covered, for 30 minutes.

Tip: Watch dough temperature all morning and keep it under 78F. A hot secondo impasto ferments unevenly and slackens before the proof is done. Chill the bowl between stages if you need to.

Day 2, Midday: Pirlatura and the Long Proof (4-6 hours in the mold at 78-82F)

Two gentle roundings build the taut skin, then the madre does the slowest, most important rise of the whole bake. There's nothing to do for most of the afternoon except let it happen. Enjoy that.

1. Round it twice. With buttered hands, perform the pirlatura: drag and rotate the dough against the bench to tuck the surface tight. Rest 15 minutes, round again, then lower the ball seam-side down into the 1kg paper mold set on a sheet pan.
2. Proof 4-6 hours at 78-82F. Cover loosely and hold at 78-82F until the dome crests about 1 inch below the rim of the mold. With a healthy madre this takes 4-6 hours. Judge by height only; the clock is a rumor, the rim is a fact. For the final 30 minutes, leave it exposed to air so the surface sets a thin, dry skin. That skin is what lets the scarpatura open cleanly.

Tip: If your kitchen can't hold 78F, the proofer earns its keep here more than anywhere. A proof that drags past 8 hours in a cold room builds acid you'll taste in the crumb.

Day 2, Evening: Scarpatura, Bake, Hang (The cross, the oven, and 12 hours upside down)

The scarpatura is the signature of Milanese panettone: a shallow cross cut into the skin with a pat of butter at its center. The flaps peel open in the oven and the crown blooms through them. Then the bake, and then the hang that guards everything you've built.

1. Set up before you score. Heat the oven to 350F (175C), rack in the lower third, 30 minutes of preheat. Rig the hanging station now: two stockpots or two chairs, with clearance for the mold to hang freely. Drive the two skewers through the mold about 1 inch above the base, straight through the dough and out the other side.
2. The scarpatura. With a razor or sharp paring knife, cut a shallow cross across the whole surface of the dome, just through the skin, not into the depth of the dough. Lift the four corner flaps gently, lay the cold butter pat in the center, and fold the flaps back over it. In the oven the flaps peel back, the butter bastes the crown, and you get that classic split-open bloom.
3. Bake to 185F internal. Bake 50-55 minutes until the crown is deep mahogany and a probe in the center reads 185F (85C). Trust the thermometer over the color; this dough browns early and finishes late. Tent loosely with foil at 30 minutes if it's darkening fast.
4. Invert within one minute. Out of the oven and straight upside down onto the rig, hanging by the skewers. Move with purpose. The crumb is molten and the first minute decides whether it sets tall.
5. Hang 12 hours, then slice. A full 12 hours, hanging, undisturbed, overnight. In the morning, turn it upright, draw the skewers, and let it stand another hour. Then slice it with a serrated knife and look at what you made: an open, feathery, golden crumb that pulls apart in shreds and smells like orange, vanilla, and honest fermentation. That's the summit. You climbed it.

Tip: Resist slicing before the hang is done. Panettone cut warm gums up and sells your work short. It's even better on day 2, and better again on day 3.

Pirlatura

Rounding a soft, fruit-loaded enriched dough with buttered hands to build the taut skin that sends the rise upward.

Double Pirlatura (Recommended) (recommended)

Two roundings, 15 minutes apart. The rest between them is what makes the second one stick.

1. First round. Butter your hands and the bench knife. Drag the dough toward you while rotating, tucking the surface under itself. Three or four passes.
2. Rest 15 minutes. Leave the ball uncovered so the skin relaxes and dries slightly.
3. Second round and load. Round again until the ball sits up tight, then lift with the bench knife and settle it seam-side down into the mold.

Proof test: Ready for the scarpatura when the dome crests about 1 inch below the mold rim and the surface has set a thin dry skin.

Scarpatura, Then Low and Slow

A moderate oven gives the tall center time to finish while the sugared crust browns. The internal thermometer is the only judge that matters.

Oven: 175°C / 350°F. Internal temperature when done: 85°C / 185°F.

1kg Paper Mold (Recommended) (recommended)

The paper mold bakes on a sheet pan and doubles as the hanging harness.

Equipment: 1kg paper panettone mold,Sheet pan,Two long skewers,Probe thermometer,Razor blade

1. Preheat. 350F (175C), lower third rack, 30 minutes minimum.
2. Skewer and score. Skewers through the mold 1 inch above the base, then the scarpatura cross with the butter pat folded inside.
3. Bake. 50-55 minutes to 185F (85C) internal. Foil tent at 30 minutes if the crown runs dark.
4. Hang. Invert within 60 seconds. Hang a full 12 hours before slicing.

Note: Every shortcut in this bake shows up in the slice. The hang is not a suggestion.

Storage

• Room temperature: 2 weeks or more, wrapped airtight once fully cool. The madre's acidity is a natural preservative; this loaf genuinely improves for the first several days.
• Refrigerated: No. The fridge stales the crumb and mutes the aromatics.
• Frozen: Up to 3 months, whole or thickly sliced, wrapped in plastic and foil. Thaw wrapped at room temperature for a day.

Artisan panettone in Italy is dated weeks ahead of Christmas for a reason. Bake in early December, wrap well, and it will be at its best for the holiday.

Frequently Asked Questions

My crumb came out dense and wet, almost gummy. What happened?

That's nearly always the madre, not the oven. A weak or overly acidic culture can't raise the secondo impasto fully, and excess acid also breaks down gluten during the long ferments, so the crumb sets heavy and moist. Check the honest signals: did the third refresh truly triple in 3-4 hours, and did the primo truly triple overnight? If either answer is no, the bake was decided before Day 2. Give the madre a week of warm refreshes and a bagnetto, re-run the readiness tests, and try again. Also confirm you baked to 185F internal; pulling at 175F leaves the center underdone and reads as gumminess too.

It rose beautifully, then collapsed. Why?

If it collapsed in the oven, it overproofed; the mold rim is your gauge, and past about 1 inch below the rim the structure is running out of strength. If it collapsed after the bake, it either skipped or delayed the hang, or came out underbaked. Probe for 185F, invert within a minute, and hang the full 12 hours. A properly baked and hung panettone does not fall.

The flavor is sour, more like sourdough bread than panettone. Can I fix that?

Sourness is stored in the madre before it ever touches the dough. It means the culture was carrying too much acetic acid: refreshes too far apart, temperatures too cool, or a madre that never finished converting. Panettone should taste sweet, buttery, and faintly tangy at most. Run a week of twice-daily refreshes at 78-82F with one bagnetto, and don't bake until a peaked piece tastes sweet with only a gentle tang. Cold spots during the overnight ferment do the same damage, so verify that 76-79F actually held.

The primo impasto didn't triple overnight. Do I push forward anyway?

No. This is the one gate you cannot talk your way through. Give it up to 3 more hours at 78F. If it gets there, continue; the day just shifts later. If it stalls short of double, the madre wasn't ready, and mixing the secondo now buys you a dense brick that wastes your fruit and butter. Better plan: knead in 2g of instant yeast, ferment 2 more hours, and bake it as a rescue loaf for toast, then spend a week strengthening the madre before the real rematch.

Why three refreshes on bake day? My madre already triples fine.

Tripling proves the yeast is strong; the three refreshes manage the acid. Each round dilutes accumulated acidity while keeping the yeast at peak, so by evening the culture is at maximum lift and minimum sourness, exactly what a 10-12 hour ferment under sugar and butter demands. One refresh puts strong-but-acidic madre into your primo, and you'll taste it two days later.

How is this different from your yeasted panettone, honestly?

The architecture is identical: two doughs, staged butter, the mold, the hang. The difference is the engine and what it earns you. The madre gives a more complex aroma, a shreddier crumb, and a shelf life of two weeks or more, against about one week for the yeasted your-first-panettone. It also demands weeks of preparation and gives you more ways to fail. That's the trade, and by Christmas morning it's worth it.

Nutrition

Per serving (1 slice (about 80g)): 330 calories, 44g carbohydrates, 6g protein, 15g fat, 2g fiber, 170mg sodium. Makes 12 servings.