Chocolate Panettone Recipe

Who loves chocolate? While the classic orange and raisin panettone is light and refreshing, chocolate panettone is decadent and rich. I love both, so here's the recipe for you. Please remember to use good quality cocoa powder and chocolate chips because they affect the final taste of the panettone. They are the star of the bake, so be generous. I personally love Ghirardelli cocoa powder. For chocolates, I like Valrhona. When it comes to Valrhona, it involves more work because I have to chop them up into smaller pieces. Nestle and Hershey's chocolate chips are yummy. Local brand called Beryl's have delicious choc chips as well. For white chocolate chips, I use Callebaut.

If you haven't made panettone before, please read this blog post with video instructions. Or maybe you want to first make your own pasta madre.

First day

10am: Refresh PM 1:2:43% (takes about 5 hours at 28C)

3pm: Refresh PM 1:1.1:45% (takes about 3-3.5 hours)

4pm: Mix flour water and yolks until dough is strong, wrap tight and put in the fridge

6.30-7pm when the PM is ready: Mix PM with cold dough we autolysed earlier. When dough comes together, add sugar in 2 batches, then butter. This should take about 12-15minutes. Fold the dough gently and place it in a greased container that's big enough to allow for 4X rise. Let it proof overnight at 26-27C. It should triple in 12 hours.

After the first dough is done, I make the glaze and pop it in the fridge overnight. The next day before I use it, I just temper it then put in a bag for piping.

Second Day

When the dough is nearly tripled, put it in the fridge and let it rise until it hits 3X. I prefer to take more time and let it really cool down, minimum 1 hour. Sometimes I forget to check and the dough has already risen 3X in room temperature so I let it chill for 30 minutes with ice packs top and bottom. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

When the dough is nice and cold, mix it with flour and malt at the lowest speed. Wait for the dough to come together smooth. Then add sugar in 2 batches. When all sugar is absorbed, add chocolate mixture, alternating with butter. I added half the chocolate mixture, and mixed until everything comes together. Then I added half the butter and mixed until all butter is absorbed. Repeat with the other half.

By now, the dough is strong, and also maybe a little tight. Add 1/3 of the cold yolks. Mix at higher speed. When all the yolks are absorbed, add another 1/3. Together with the last 1/3, add salt and mix. Dough should feel looser and more extensible. If your dough still feels tight, mix at higher speed for about 1 minute and observe the difference. Depending on flour, you might need to add a little extra water. However, you need to be careful that if there's too much water, the final bake might be unstable and collapse. When the dough is ready, add all the cold chocolate chips to bring down the dough temperature. At this stage, mix at the lowest speed only to evenly incorporate the chocolate chips.

If your final dough temp is 28C, let it rest for 20 minutes on the bench, then preshape. If your final dough temp is about 25C, let it rest for 30-45 minutes, then preshape. After preshape, I let it rest for 25-30 minutes, then shape and proof. For this recipe, the final proof took me only 5 hours. The additional water sped up the fermentation. I always proof until the dough is about 3-4cm from the rim before bake.

Pipe on the glaze right before bake. You can add icing sugar on top of the glaze, or sugar pearls or whatever topping you choose. Be careful not to over glaze. You need less than you think. Keep the glaze at least an inch away from the edge.

As for bake setting, it's dependent on your personal oven. I use 165C, with fan on because I need to regulate the heat distribution in my oven. I bake for 40 minutes for 2x500g panettone in the oven. After bake, flip it and let it set overnight.

Edited** I made a video recently, filming the process of how I make the chocolate panettone. It's slightly different from the process explained here, but it still works.

To check if this recipe works for you, cut one open. The crumb shouldn't be wet. The structure should hold and it shouldn't cave in. If you added extra water, you might want to scale down. Maybe you needed to bake longer. Maybe it's mixing problem, or PM problem. If your panettone is dry, then maybe add a bit more water next time, or reduce bake time by 5 minutes. There are too many variables, and the way to determine is to change ONLY 1 variable for each bake to determine the issue. That's how I determine how to adjust the recipe and bake because most of the time, a standard recipe needs to be adjusted to suit our own environment.

I hope you give this a try. Let me know how it goes.

Recipe makes 6 panettone in 500g molds. If you only want to make 1 piece, divide all ingredients by 6.

Dough 1

Flour 600g

Water 300g

Yolks 135g

PM 180g

Sugar 185g

Butter 180g

Dough 2

All of dough 1

Flour 150g

Malt powder 5g

Sugar 150g

Cocoa mixture --> 40g cocoa powder + 70g hot water to make a paste. Then add 40g honey + 10g vanilla paste. I usually mix this the night before so it'll be cold when I use it

Butter 325g

Yolks 250g

Salt 10g

Additional water (optional depending on dough) 20g

Chocolate chips 500g (I like to mix white milk and dark chocolates together)

Chocolate glaze

70g almond flour

22g cocoa powder

10g corn flour

15g all purpose flour

100g sugar

100g egg whites

Happy baking!

Lily