Panettone

• By Claire Borg

Bake it and eat it immediately. Unlike the commercial version, it doesn’t stay fresh for long. Make bread pudding with any stale left-overs, or toast them and eat them with a sprinkling of icing-sugar or some butter.

You will need:

350g of plain flour, one teaspoonful of salt, 225ml of tepid milk, three teaspoonfuls of dried yeast, one teaspoonful of vanilla essence, a pinch each of allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg, 75g of sultanas or currants, 35g of candied orange peel or mixed peel, the grated zest of an orange, 60g of castor sugar, 80g of soft unsalted butter, an egg-yolk.

Sprinkle the yeast onto the tepid milk, leave it for five minutes, then stir until it has dissolved. Mix together the spices, the salt, half of the sugar and the flour. Make a well in this mixture, and pour the yeast-milk into it, slowly stirring until you have a runny paste. Cover it with a tea towel, and leave the liquid to froth, which takes about 20 minutes. Now add the orange zest and vanilla essence and mix it all together until everything is combined. Turn this dough onto a clean surface and knead it with your hands for 10 minutes until it is silky and shiny. Work in the sultanas and candied peel and knead it again. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover it with a tea towel and leave it to stand until it has doubled in size, which takes about an hour. Knock it back and leave it to rest for 10 minutes. Turn it onto a clean surface and knead the remaining sugar into it. Leave it to rest for a couple of minutes. With your fingertips, gently press into the dough the yolk and soft butter. Don’t overwork it. Pick it up and drop it into a 15cm-diameter cake tin lined with baking-paper reaching about 6cm higher than the rim. The paper should be greased with softened butter. Let the dough rise in the tin for two hours, until it has doubled in size. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, glaze the dough with milk (using a brush) and bake it for 45 minutes. Remove it from the oven immediately it is ready, and leave it to cool for a few minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack. Decorate it with icing-sugar. Home-made panettone is heavier and denser than the bought variety, and will keep for just a couple of days after baking.