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Panettone Question — extent of gluten development when mixing first dough

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

Panettone Question — extent of gluten development when mixing first dough

I have been a long time lurker and have enjoyed (and my baking has benefited immensely from) reading all of the wonderful comments from the incredible bakers who participate in this site.

I now have a question that has been confounding me regarding panettone. I have made panettone several times using the recipe from the Wild Yeast blog. The result has been great in terms of flavor and crumb, but the tops always collapse while still in the oven (after doming up nicely over the tops of the molds). They then collapse further while cooling even though I hang them upside down.  I am wondering whether this is a problem with gluten development (I do use high gluten flour) or a proofing problem (over or under?). 

The recipe I have been using and some others I have looked at call for mixing the first dough just “until combined,” which I take to mean that not much gluten development will have happened at this point.  I have noticed that other recipes I have looked at call for bringing the first dough to full development. What is the reason for the two different approaches?  Do you think my results might be better (or at least not worse) if I stayed with the same recipe I’ve been using but mixed the first dough to full gluten development? I hate to experiment without some guidance given the cost of the ingredients and the time involved in making the recipe. 

Thanks for any insight or advice!

Charlotte

suave's picture
suave

The reason the WYB (Suas) recipe does not develop gluten in the first dough is its long fermentation time.  If you develop gluten in that soft dough and let it sit for 12 h it will start to come apart.  You get gluten at full strength in the second dough.  Your panettone probably collapses because of overproofing, although there could be other reasons.

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

Suave

Thank you so much for you response. I will definitely try to make sure I don’t overproof.

However, I’m still confused about the gluten development issue because the other recipes I’ve seen that involve full (or at least substantial) gluten development for the first dough also have long (12 hour — until dough triples) first dough ferments.

For example, Giorilli’s recipe provides that after incorporating all ingredients into the first dough:  “Knead until you have a uniform, smooth and shiny dough (this will take at least 20 minutes).”  Whereas Suas says to mix until just incorporated into shaggy dough. But both have the same long ferment for the first dough. 

Do you  or anyone else who has been making panettone think one approach is more fool proof (if there is such a thing when it comes to panettone)  than the other?

Thanks again for your insights!

Charlotte

suave's picture
suave

I have not personally seen Giorilli's recipe, so I can't comment on it, but the mixing time may depend on a variety of factors, for example - scaling, and the amount and state of sugar and butter.   I will note though that an Italian book I do have, while speaking of circa 20 minute mixing times, clearly implies an Artofex mixer, works on 3-5 kilo scale for the first dough, and generally advises not to mix to a shiny state. 

mwilson's picture
mwilson

I see you're referring to Iginio Masari's book Cresci there.

Doughs that have been over-worked to the point where the gluten has been irreparably damaged take on that shiny look and Massari makes the point to remind the reader to not make that mistake. He does this because he notes the importance of mixing the dough fully. 

In the earlier pages Massari writes of the first dough and its composition, he says the flour should always be worked to its maximum extension.

Massari has written about this in other texts and even detailed what to look for. He has described how when fully developed, bubbles will be visible under the skin of the dough. Mixing the first dough to full or near full development is important and standard practice.

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

 Mwilson

Great—I will follow your advice and mix the first dough to substantial development. I plan to start tonight and will report back tomorrow evening on my results. Thank you!!

Charlotte

mwilson's picture
mwilson

‘If you develop gluten in that soft dough and let it sit for 12 h it will start to come apart’

Sorry but this is a fallacy.

Yippee's picture
Yippee

a few other possibilities have come to mind:

*Did you monitor the temperature (which might have led to overproof) when fermenting the 1st dough?

*Did you scale the dough properly -- could the dough be "overweight"? 

*Did you fully develop the final dough (assuming your 1st dough was not over-proved)?

"Knead until you have a uniform, smooth and shiny dough (this will take at least 20 minutes)"

may or may not fully develop the dough--it depends on how powerful your mixer is.  A more accurate way to tell is to do a windowpane test. 

I had made panettoni based on a French baker (Philippe Bigot) and an Italian baker's (Rolando Morandin) recipes. Both times I mixed the 1st dough to intermediate development (the dough tore with zigzag/ragged edges in a windowpane test) and fully developed the final dough. Both panettoni held their beautiful dome during and after baking.    

Just something to think about--maybe other bakers will chime in to give you a more direct answer.

Yippee

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

Yippee

i will keep an eye on temperature and make sure I fully develop the final dough. I don’t think I made a mistake in scaling. As you and mwilson have both suggested I plan to mix the first dough to substantial development and see if that solves the problem (or at least results in some improvement). I am starting the first dough tonight with fingers crossed!  

Thank you so much for your guidance!

Charlotte

MonkeyDaddy's picture
MonkeyDaddy

is the phenomenon that ancient holiday-oriented recipes such as panettone tend to have almost as many recipes as there are cooks.  When a home baker presents something new, beaming with pride, to their family, the family almost always feels a sense of obligation to reward the hard work and innovation with effusive praise.  Even if the baker did not do such a great job, they will likely try again and thus a "family tradition" is born.  Many a soggy, or brick-like fruitcake recipe has been perpetuated among families this way for decades.  Some folks like it that way, others merely tolerate it for the sake of not hurting anyone's feelings.  I tried my hand at a stollen a few years back and my family raved over it, yet as soon as I cut into it I saw a lot of room for improvement.  But as you mention, these breads are complex (i.e., time-consuming) and expensive to make, so I'm still researching stollen techniques.  I think for the next attempt I will try Bruno Albouze's recipe

My wife's family is Italian, and she has a family panettone recipe for what she calls "Pandusa."  Now, I know this is a Spanish word, and what they're probably referring to is Pandolce.  She and I have gone around in circles for years about the way her family pronounces the names of bread recipes, but I digress.  In any case, her recipe is the "just until combined" version you mention above.  To be frank, I don't really care for it.  It's dense, crumbly, and always seems overly dry to me.  But I love my wife dearly and don't want to rain on her parade, so I eat it.  It's amazing what a toaster and a healthy smear of butter do for this bread.  And in researching my answer for this question I found that there is a school of thought out there that prefers this texture for this particular recipe.  For my own tastes, I would rather have a well-developed dough that bakes up light and airy, but it's her family tradition not mine.

My Mom used to make a Slovenian-style potiça at Christmas time; she got the recipe from a Slovenian neighbor when she was young.  That's my family tradition, and I love the ritual of making it.  This year's batch took 25 minutes under the KitchenAid dough hook, at speed 4, to develop a respectable windowpane and bubbles under the skin, and it came out great if I say so myself.  

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

Well thanks to all of your help I had a better outcome than I’ve ever had before!  I do think I was underdeveloping the gluten in both the first and second doughs and that was the reason that the panettones would fall while still in the oven. In spite of all efforts to avoid overproofing, I managed to seriously overproof the first dough when I woke up and first checked it after 11 hours, and slightly overproofed the final as well.  (Next time I will put it in a cooler place and skip the small amount of IDY that the recipe I use calls for.)  Anyway—a few pictures (boy—posting pictures is quite an ordeal!):

Second dough just before adding raisins and orange peels

 

Start of final proof


Ready for oven

After cooling ( I think I would have gotten a better rise if I hadn’t overproofed)

 

Crumb shots (sorry couldn’t get this one to load right side up)


THANK YOU! Could not have done it without your help! Now I plan to put my new learning to use as I bake panettones for my friends and family. 

Charlotte

 

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Looks great!

You should create a blog entry on the fresh loaf detailing this bake, you never know it might get featured on the front page! Could very well be an inspiring read...

 

Michael

CharlotteS's picture
CharlotteS

Thank you so much for your kind comment!  Coming from you it really means a lot.