Baking For The Holidays

For the final issue of our celebratory 100thanniversary year, we're sharing some classic baking recipes from the RD vaults

Panettone 

The yeast dough for this Italian specialty is unusually runny, which makes the cake all the more moist and light. Mini-panettone can be baked successfully in muffin pans

Serves: 16

Preparation time: 40 minutes plus 1.5–2 hours resting time

Cooking time: 60–70 minutes 

Ingredients:

125g sultanas golden raisins)

2tbsprum 1

50g butter, plus extra for brushing

400g plain (all-purpose) flour

1/2 tsp salt

125ml milk

14g dry powdered) yeast

60g white (granulated) sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence extract)

4eggsand 2 egg yolks

50g glacé candied) cherries, cutin small pieces

55g each of blanched almonds, candied orange peel and candied lemon peel, finely chopped

105g apricot jam

125g icing sugar

Method:

1. Use a 22cm (8 1/2in) springform tin. Soak the sultanas in rum for about 20 minutes until they become plump. Melt the butter and allow it to cool.

2. To make the dough, place flour and salt in a mixing bowl and pour butter around the edge. Heat milk until lukewarm, stir in yeast, sugar, vanilla essence, eggs and egg yolks and add mixture to the bowl. Knead dough for about 5 minutes with the dough hooks of an electric mixer or by hand.