Traditional Christmas sweets - sweet bread for Christmas in Italy is called panettone, from the word 'panetto', which means “small bread cake”, and the suffix 'one' turns a small cake into a large one. Another legend says that this sweet bread for Christmas, however, like many recipes, turned out by chance and was cooked from leftover products by a cook named Tony. In its composition, sweet bread is similar to Easter cake, but it has more dried fruit and less baking.
In my sweet bread for Christmas there is a very tasty “raisin” - candied kumquat, if you do not find it, replace with candied orange or candied mandarin.
- Cooking time: 3 hours
- Servings: 6
Ingredients for Christmas Christmas Bread with Kumquat and Figs
- 165 ml of milk;
- 14 g of pressed yeast;
- 25 g butter;
- 55 g of sugar;
- 1 chicken egg;
- 280 g wheat flour;
- 50 g candied kumquat;
- 50 g of dried figs;
- 25 g dates;
- 30 g raisins;
- 25 g sunflower seeds;
- 7 g ground cinnamon;
- salt, powdered sugar.
A method of cooking sweet bread for Christmas with kumquat and figs
Cooking pastry dough. We heat the milk to 30 degrees, add sugar and yeast, we monitor the degree of milk heating, because if it is too hot, it deactivates the yeast and sweet bread will not rise. Melted butter, cool. Wheat flour mix with half a teaspoon of fine salt and sift.
Combine all the ingredients, add the egg, knead the dough for about 12 minutes, until it becomes smooth. Do not be tempted to add extra flour, knead the dough thoroughly until it stops sticking to your hands. We put ready dough in heat for 1 hour.
Dried figs, candied kumquat and dates are soaked in sweet tea or strong alcohol (at your discretion), dried with a napkin, chopped dried fruits finely.
We crush the approached dough, roll it into a round cake. We spread out half the cut dried fruits, add half the norm of sunflower seeds and raisins, roll the fruit mixture with a rolling pin.
Wrap the dried fruit inside the dough, roll it out again, add a new layer of the remaining dried fruit and seeds.
We form round bread. We put it in a baking dish or on a baking sheet. We put in a warm place for 30 minutes, and in the meantime, we heat the oven to 220 degrees.
Sprinkle bread with water, make a cross-cut at the top. Make a cut with a very sharp knife, which is previously moistened in cold water.
Put the bread in a preheated oven, bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.
Remove the finished bread from the oven and place it on the wire rack. Be sure to cool the bread on the grid, so you can save the crisp. If you put hot bread on a smooth surface, then steam will form under it and the crust will soften. When the bread has cooled down a little, sprinkle it with powdered sugar.
We leave sweet bread for Christmas with kumquat and figs for several hours, and then cut and serve to the table with warm milk, tea or mulled wine, as you like! Bon appetit and Merry Christmas!
