It takes a village to raise a Pan D'oro... the village is all the people who impart their knowledge and encouragement here at the  Fresh Loaf and out in the blogosphere.  I really want to thank Susan@ Wild Yeast [1] for her step by step directions and formula , MC@Farine [2]and Foolishpoolish [3] and many more for sharing their experience and inspiring baking blogs....without them i would still be making quick breads.

Pan D'oro, or bread of gold, and it's cousin Panetonne, have a long history [4] in Italy dating back to when ancient Romans sweetened a type of leavened bread with honey. In Italy and France, the panettone comes with an often varied history, but one that invariably states that its birthplace is in Milan (Wikipedia) [5] Throughout the ages this "tall, leavened fruitcake" makes cameo appearances in the arts: it is shown in a sixteenth century painting. The Pan D'oro is, by any stretch of the imagination, not a quick bread. It takes time and patience, but what it really takes to raise a Pandoro is millions and millions of beasties that make up the strong sweet starter. I also found an interesting scientific explanation of the whole fermentation process here and time table [6] that I will read when I have some time. I have seen pictures of Lievito naturale legato or bound sourdough and it still remained a mystery. I basically used a 100gr starter-50w-100f with a 4 hour refreshment cycle at 85* and it worked just fine.

Another important consideration is the temperature of the Lievito naturale during fermentation... a whopping 85*, it being winter in the North East and my house hovering around 62-65*(by choice). I would have to fall back on the old pot holder trick (3 folded pot holders=76*) in the stove door with the light on. It works in a pinch but, I always run into this problem of proofing temperature. In the summer it is too hot (I can't bake or i have to use ice water baths) and in the winter it is too cold. I've been tooling around with many ideas on how to make a proofer work... a small car refrigerator/cooler or wine vault for the summer and a heater/light bulb for the winter. The Pan D'oro made it happen. I turned again to the internet village bakers and found a design for a proofer that Steve@Bread [7] cetera posted @Fresh Loaf, and I took it a step further. I went looking for a thermostat for reptiles.... ended up at Craigs list with the perfect solution... a Ranco ETC microprocessor [8] =based temperature controller thermostat that plugs into the heating unit or refrigeration system. It really takes the prize and i got it for a good price from a home brewer who started making babies and his wife made him stop making suds. So I now have a proofer in my insulated pantry cabinet that i can set at any temperature and forget about. Well almost... you have to remember the basics: set your timer and remember what temperature you set it at last!

Well.. can you tell what is coming? I crawled into bed about 1 o'clock after making chocolate biscotti, a batch of sour dough challah, stollen and got the Pan D'oro tucked away for it's final rise. It took me a minute to fall asleep but I woke up startled from a dream of sugar plum fairies way too early! I lay in bed thinking I had till noon before I would have to bake them off... and then it hit me..."Oh S***t...I left the proofer set at 85*!" I ran down the stairs and opened the door to the proofer and just laughed when i saw the dough going way over the top of the mold. I quickly turned on the stove to pre-heat and made some coffee. The overflow problem was two fold. When I went on line to see how much dough my Italian mold would take, I made an incorrect assumption. The smaller Portuguese molds takes 500gr. so I thought for that for this big mold, 1000grs did not seen out of line. Wrong. But it was a mistake that could be easily fixed and no one would know  (and Sara and I got to taste what I had to cut away.) I must say.... the stollen and the Pan D'oro were the exclamation points to a delicious Christmas Day dinner at Rick and Rita's. (Folks liked the Challah and the double-dipped chocolate biscotti too. )   Hapy New Year to all.

                                                                        I am submitting this to Susan@Yeastspotting [9]