I was reading PMcCool's panettone post [1]from last year and thought it might be seasonally appropriate to revive the subject of natural yeast panettone.

I've made panettone for several years now (never before from natural yeast) and it generally turns out a little denser than it seems like is traditional. I mean, it always tastes fantastic... hard to go wrong with all that egg and butter. And I add some rum to the fruit, which is yummy.

I agree with PMcCool that the fat and all that fruit (and I think, in my case, the _wet_ fruit, because of all that yummy rum) definitely weighs it down.

I'm going to experiment this year with dry fruit (finding somewhere else in the procedure to add the rum, which my family loves).

And I've been eyeing the pandoro recipe in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking (I've requested my sister bring me some for... um... research... she lives in Brooklyn). I'm going to attempt to maybe follow that procedure, but add the fruit in.

Has anyone tried that Pandoro recipe from Maggie Glezer? Am I asking for trouble if I try to add fruit to it? Maybe I should just follow the procedure it describes (to get the airyness and height) and use the high gluten flour and SAF Gold it suggests (both of which apparently give it the strength to overcome all that extra weight) but use the somewhat less rich (ha!) proportions of butter and egg (like maybe something closer to Peter Reinhart's) to compensate for the extra fruit.