Golden Pandoro

By David TisueBaking, Breads, Cakes, Desserts
Pandoro on a cake pedestal

High and Mighty, The Golden Pandoro is an amazing gift for the Holidays and awesome with a cup of tea.

Overhead shot of Pandoro

Pandoro is one of my favorite things to make for the holidays. It makes a great gift and is something special. Pandoro or pan d’oro means ‘golden bread. The origin of Pandoro goes back to the 18th century, and commercial production began in 1894 in Verona Italy. These delicious loaves of not too sweet goodness get their golden color from all the eggs and egg yolks in the batter. The traditional star shaped cakes covered in powdered sugar are meant to look like snow-covered mountains.

Pandoro streight on view

The best way to describe what Pandoro is: If you took a slightly sweet and moist bread and married it to a pound cake. Or as a friend described it: “It’s like Panettone, but without the fruit, and it’s cake!” It’s delicious and goes great with coffee or a good cup of tea. Pandoro also makes fantastic French toast.

Sourdough starter in a jar with blue lid

I’m not gonna lie. These are not easy to make. They require lots of special ingredients and take almost 24 hours to complete. Not that you are doing something the whole time. In fact you are sleeping for some of it. But they do take some work. You need to have a 6 quart mixer, an active sourdough culture (I promise I will go into sourdough in a different post. If you don’t have a sourdough starter, see if you can get some from a friend). Hard cocoa butter can be found online or in gourmet grocery stores. It needs to be crumbled a bit if all you can find is a stick. But I found some at Amazon that are in disks. I found that using both vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste gives great flavor here. I have used the seeds from vanilla beans, however, vanilla beans have become so expensive.

cooling Pandoro

Finding Pandoro mold is another matter. They are hard to find. I found mine at Bridge Kitchenware in New York. But Bridge is now a mail order only store and they don’t carry all the great specialty things they used to. You may be able to find the molds online, they do show up here and there. Or you can use a Bundt pan. The normal size is also 12 cups. I have included weight measurments for most of the ingredients. It is more accurate, and for this recipe easier to weigh everything if you can. Don’t worry if you don’t have a scale it still works great to eye ball it.

slice of Pandoro

This recipe makes 4 big Pandoro. I feel that if you are going to go to all this trouble you might as well make enough to give. They have staying power. They will stay fresh if properly wrapped for a week or more. They make a great holiday gift. I also added almond flour, which is not traditional, but I found it gives a great flavor and texture. You can leave it out, and it will bake up about the same. I hope hope one of you tries this sometime, as it’s a great thing to make. Let me know in the comments below.

Pandoro with christmas greenery

Happy holidays!!!!

A loaf of Pandoro

A loaf of Pandoro
Print
Pandoro
Prep Time
21 hrs
Cook Time
50 mins
Total Time
21 hrs 50 mins
 

A Traditional Italian holiday yeasted cake/bread     


You will need 4-12 cup pandoro molds, you can use 12 cup bundt pans

Course: Baking
Cuisine: Italian
Servings: 4 loaves
Ingredients
Dough #1
  • 3/4 cup active sourdough starter that has been fed 8-12 hours before 120 grams
  • 6 tablespoons lukewarm water 90 grams
  • 1 1/3 cups bread flour 195 grams
Dough #2
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast, preferably Saf Gold instant yeast
  • 1/4 cup water at 105° - 110°
  • 1 1/3 cups of dough #1 315 grams
  • 2 1/4 cups bread flour 345 grams
  • 3 large eggs
  • 6 tablespoons sugar
Dough #3
  • 2 oz hard cocoa butter 56-57 grams
  • 5 sticks unsalted butter, preferably high fat European at room temp. 550 grams
  • 4 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • the risen dough #2
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 12 large eggs
  • 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
  • 6 large egg yolks
  • 2 1/3 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups fine ground almond flour, preferably without skin
finishing
  • 1/4 cup butter, very soft
  • powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions

  1. Here’s a note about timing: if you start at 9 am the day before you bake, you will be mixing the final dough at 5 pm. To bake the following morning, it can be shifted to later. For instance if you start at 12 noon, you will be mixing the final dough at 8 pm.

    A sample timeline looks like this:

    9:00 am dough #1 or start at 12:00 pm

    1:00 pm dough #2 4:00 pm

    5:00 pm Dough #3 8:00 pm

    Bake at 6:00 am Bake at 9:00 am

Dough #1 about 9:00 am

  1. To make dough #1: Mix together by hand the sourdough starter, the water and the first part of the bread flour. Knead it until you get a smooth ball of dough. 

  2. Place in a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 4 hours. The dough should be puffed up and doubled in size.

  3. You don’t need all of this dough. You will end up throwing out a little bit of it when you measure it out for the second dough. Or you can use the left over starter for another baking project, like a loaf of bread.

Dough #2 about 1:00 pm

  1. To make dough #2: Stir the yeast into the the water and let stand for 5 minutes. It should start to bubble. 

  2. Measure out the amount of Dough #1 that you need (315 grams about 1 1/3 cups) Discard the rest or reserve for another project.

  3. Break up the measured out sourdough into several chunks and add them to the flour in a mixing bowl. Add the yeast, the 3 eggs and the sugar. Knead by machine or by hand until you get a very smooth ball of dough, about 5 to 8 minutes. 

  4. The dough may take some work to get smooth, but it will eventually smooth out. 

  5. Place in a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise again for 3 to 4 hours or until the dough has quadrupled in size. 

    Pandoro Dough #2
Getting ready to mix final dough

  1. Heavily butter and flour 4 12-cup Pandoro molds. You may use bundt pans (most of them are also 12 cups). A spiral fluted one would be beautiful. I use very soft room temperature butter. Using a pastry brush, I make sure all the nooks and crannies are coated in butter before I flour them.

    Pandoro batter and molds
Dough #3 about 5:00 pm

  1. To Make dough #3 Melt the cocoa butter in the microwave until barely melted. Be careful! It will get very hot. Let cool for a bit, but not until it is cold.

  2. In a mixer, whip the butter until it is light and fluffy. 

  3. In a steady stream, while the mixer is still running, pour in the slightly cooled cocoa butter. Whip until the butter is light in color and doubled in volume.

  4. Scrape out the butter and set aside. You can wipe out the remaining butter but no need to clean the bowl.  

  5. Into the mixing bowl, stir together the flour and salt.

  6. Break up dough #2 into 5 or so pieces and add to the flour mixture along with 9 of the eggs and the honey.

  7. Using a dough hook, knead the dough for 6 to 7 minutes until the dough is smooth, cleans the sides of the bowl and is elastic.

  8. Add in the remaining 3 eggs and knead until incorporated. 

  9. Switch to the paddle attachment. To the kneaded dough add 3 egg yolks, vanilla, and vanilla bean paste.

  10. Mix at low speed to start and then medium after the egg yolks have begun to mix in to prevent splashing. Beat until the egg has been completely mixed in. 

  11. Add in the remaining 3 egg yolks and again mix until incorporated. The dough may take a while to mix completely. Have faith and continue to beat, scraping down the bowl and pushing the dough off the paddle if necessary.

  12. At low speed, beat in half of the sugar.

  13. Add the remaining sugar and beat until the dough is very smooth.

  14. Now add half of the beaten butter mixture. Again, beat until it has been incorporated. You may need to push the dough from the paddle again and scrape the side of the bowl to get it to fully incorporate.

  15. Repeat with the remaining butter. 

  16. Add the almond flour and beat until the dough is very smooth and fully incorporated as this is the final step (whew!) 

Final rising about 6:00 pm

  1. Divide the dough between the 4 buttered molds. It is really helpful to use a scale for this to get them even. The dough is almost pourable and you may find that it is easier to just get messy and use your hands to divide and move dough between the molds to get them evenly weighed. 

    Pandoro dough in molds

  2. The dough will look like it would never get to the top of the molds, but they will eventually quadruple. 

  3. Cover the filled molds loosely with plastic wrap.

  4. Let rise for 11 to 12 hours. 

Baking about 5:00 am

  1. The Pandoros will have risen to the top and have domed slightly over. At 11 hours carefully remove the plastic wrap. It’s ok if some of the dough sticks to the plastic wrap from the top of the dough.

  2. At this point preheat the oven to 350°. If you are doing this over night you can go back to bed for a nap for 45 minutes to an hour. Let the oven completely preheat for at least 30 minutes. 

  3. Bake the Pandoro for 40 to 50 minutes. The Pandoro will be very golden brown, and the center will look like it has fallen slightly in the center. This is normal. 

  4. I find it easier to see if they are done by using an instant read thermometer at 205°- 210° 

  5. Let the baked Pandoro rest in the molds for 20 minutes and then unmold to cool completely. 

  6. Serve generously dusted in powdered sugar if desired. It can be cut into wedges or sliced from the top like stars.


Recipe Notes

If there are any leftovers, they make great French toast or bread pudding.