Panettone

Panettone is a naturally leavened sweet bread from Milan, baked in a paper mould and shaped like a tall dome. The crumb is deep yellow, cottony and stringy rather than crumbly, studded with sultanas and cubes of candied orange and citron.

The recipe is written into Italian law. A 2005 ministerial decree reserves the name for products made with a live sourdough starter, never commercial yeast, containing at least 16% butter, at least 4% egg yolk and at least 20% raisins and candied peel by weight. Anything else can be sold, but not called panettone.

Two shapes exist. The Milanese one is tall, with a cross cut into the dome and brushed with butter before baking, so it opens into four petals. The lower, glazed version, covered in an almond and hazelnut crust, belongs to Piedmont and the Veneto. Chocolate, pear, pistachio and no-candied-fruit versions are modern, often excellent, and not what a baker is judged on.

Buttery and faintly tangy, more bread than cake. The sourdough gives a background acidity, a whisper of the sourness in good bread, that keeps the sugar in check, so a well-made panettone is far less sweet than its reputation suggests.

The dominant aromas are butter, honey, vanilla and orange. The sultanas are plump and grapey rather than boozy, and the candied peel should be translucent and juicy, not chewy: this is candied citrus made properly, which tastes almost nothing like the neon fruit in a supermarket fruitcake.

The texture is the point. Pull a piece apart and it should come away in long silky threads, moist enough to leave a shine on your fingers. Warm it slightly and the butter softens and the whole thing smells like a bakery.

Serve it at room temperature, around 18-20°C, never cold. If the house is chilly, ten minutes in a 50°C oven wakes up the butter and the citrus; the difference between a cold slice and a barely warmed one is startling.

Cut it in vertical wedges from the top down, so every slice has both dome and base, using a serrated knife and a decisive stroke. Milan serves it with mascarpone cream, mascarpone whipped with egg yolks and sugar, or warm zabaglione, though a good one needs nothing.

Stale panettone is not a failure, it is a second recipe. Slices dipped in egg and milk and fried in butter make the best French toast you will eat; cubed, it makes bread pudding; layered with mascarpone cream it stands in for savoiardi in tiramisù.

One thing not to do: refrigerate it. The starch retrogrades and it turns rubbery within a day.

Sealed in its cellophane the loaf carries a long date, often several months out, printed by the maker on the wrapper or the base of the paper mould, and that printed date is the only reference for an unopened one. The wrapper is doing real work: the sugar and butter hold moisture in, and the cellophane stops it leaving. Keep the box somewhere cool and dark, 15 to 20 C, and away from the oven, because warmth speeds up the point at which the butter starts to smell flat and papery.

Once it is cut, air is the whole story. Slice it vertically from the top, press the cut faces back together, and return the loaf to its bag with the opening folded and clipped; at room temperature it stays soft for two to four days, and the strands go dry and brittle after that. The fridge dries it faster than the counter, so it is the wrong place for it. To hold it longer, cut it into slices, wrap each one and freeze at minus 18 C for up to three months, warming them briefly in a low oven.

Read the ingredient list before you look at the box. The words to find near the top are lievito madre or natural sourdough, butter, and egg yolk; Italian law sets minimums for butter, yolk and fruit before the name panettone can be used. Margarine, palm oil, mono and diglycerides, added flavouring and a long preservative line describe an industrial sweet loaf built for a supermarket shelf. Torn open, a well-made one shows an irregular crumb that pulls apart in long yellow strands rather than breaking like cake, with candied orange and citron in visible cubes.

The tall domed shape baked in its paper mould is the giveaway, and the two things sold beside it are different products: pandoro is an eight-pointed star with no fruit, and pan d oro style loaves in plastic clamshells are usually neither. Weight in the hand matters, since a real one feels light for its size. Price sorts them plainly, with artisan panettone from a named Milanese or Veronese bakery costing several times an industrial box of the same weight.

In the US, Eataly and Italian delicatessens carry artisan loaves from November, and warehouse clubs and supermarkets stock the big Italian brands. Expect $12-20 for a supermarket kilo and $45-90 for an artisan one. In the UK, supermarkets and department stores carry Italian brands from late autumn at £8-15, with artisan loaves at £30-45 in Italian delis.

Names worth knowing on the label: Loison, Fiasconaro, Flamigni and Olivieri 1882 for the artisan end; Tre Marie, Motta and Bauli for the industrial one, which is not a criticism. The mass-market panettone is a decent product for the price.

Read the ingredients before you pay. You want lievito madre or natural sourdough, butter rather than vegetable fat or margarine, real candied orange and citron peel, and no preservatives. A short expiry date is a good sign, not a bad one.

Buy in the first half of December. The best small producers make a fixed quantity and are gone by the 20th.

Milan from mid-November onwards, when every pasticceria in the city hangs its production in the window. Marchesi, open since 1824, and Cova, since 1817, are the historic addresses; Vergani and Martesana are the names Milanese people actually give you when you ask where they buy theirs.

Re Panettone, the tasting fair held in Milan in November, is the efficient way in: dozens of small producers in one room, and twenty panettoni tasted side by side teach you more about sourdough than any amount of reading.

The other date is 3 February, the feast of San Biagio, when Milan eats leftover panettone dry for breakfast to protect the throat. Bakeries sell off the last loaves cheap that morning. It is a genuine local ritual, and the best-value panettone of the year.

Brescia, Verona and Sicily all now field award-winning bakers, so a panettone road trip is a real thing rather than a marketing idea.