Italian Coffee, Hazelnut and Gianduja Panettone | Panettone al Caffè, Nocciole e Gianduia

Sep 29

11 min read

Panettone al Caffè, Nocciole e Gianduia (Italian Coffee, Hazelnut and Gianduja Panettone)

This is a Milanese cake speaking Piedmontese. The crumb carries a reduced espresso, veins of gianduia run through it in dark spirals, and caramelised Langhe hazelnuts break the softness. Everything else is orthodox panettone: long fermentation, a great deal of butter and yolk, a dome well above the paper. The hard part comes after the oven.

Yield: 1 panettone of about 2 lb (900 g), 12 slices. Prep: 1 hour. Fermentation and proof: 19 hours. Bake: 50 minutes. Cooling: 6 hours inverted. Difficulty: advanced. Region: Lombardy and Piedmont.

The Story

Panettone belongs to Milan, and for most of its life it did not look the way it does now. Until the early twentieth century it was a low, wide, rather dense sweet loaf sold by bakers around the Duomo, closer to a festive bread than to a cake. The tall column in a paper case is a Milanese invention of the 1920s, when Angelo Motta raised the dough inside a band of paper so that it could only climb, and the industrial panettone that followed carried the new shape across Italy long before artisan bakers took it back. Every region that received it answered with a local version: candied citrus in the south, apples in Trentino, pear and chocolate in the Veneto. The answer from Piedmont was chocolate of a very particular kind.

Gianduia is a Turin invention born of shortage. The Napoleonic blockade cut cocoa supplies to the Savoy capital, and confectioners stretched what little they had with the hazelnuts growing an hour south in the Langhe. The paste took its name in 1865 from Gianduja, the masked character of the Turin carnival, whose costumed figure handed the first wrapped giandujotti to the crowd, and Caffarel built a house on it. The nut is the Tonda Gentile of the Langhe hills, protected today as Nocciola Piemonte IGP, a small round hazelnut with a thin skin and a very high fat content that makes it behave more like a cream than a nut once ground.

Coffee is the third Turin thread. The city drinks bicerin, the layered glass of espresso, chocolate and cream poured in Piazza della Consolata since 1763, and it became one of the first Italian cities to roast on an industrial scale when Luigi Lavazza opened his grocery in 1895. Coffee, hazelnut and chocolate have sat in the same Turin glass for two centuries, so putting the three of them inside a Milanese Christmas cake is less an invention than a translation. Piedmontese pastry shops have baked versions of it since at least the 1970s, usually for their own counters rather than for export, and it remains a regional habit rather than a national one. That is why no two taste alike: the balance of coffee and cocoa is left to whoever mixes the dough.

Ingredients

For the first dough

Bread flour, 1 3/4 cups (225 g)
Water, at 70°F (21°C), 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Granulated sugar, 2 tbsp (25 g)
Fresh yeast, 0.2 oz (6 g), or instant dry yeast, 1/2 tsp (2 g)
Unsalted butter, softened, 2 tbsp (30 g)

For the coffee reduction

Freshly brewed espresso, 1 cup (240 ml)
Granulated sugar, 1 tbsp (12 g)

For the hazelnut praline

Nocciola Piemonte IGP hazelnuts, peeled, 3 1/2 oz (100 g)
Granulated sugar, 1/3 cup (65 g)
Water, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 pinch

For the final dough

Bread flour, 1 1/2 cups (190 g)
Granulated sugar, 1/3 cup (65 g)
Egg yolks, room temperature, 5
Coffee reduction, cooled, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Unsalted butter, softened to a paste, 7 tbsp (100 g)
Acacia honey, 1 tbsp (20 g)
Vanilla bean, seeds only, 1
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (5 g)
Finely grated orange zest, from 1/2 orange

For the gianduia layer and finishing

Gianduia paste, at 68°F (20°C), 5 oz (140 g)
Unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp (3 g)
Unsalted butter, cold, 1 cube of about 1/3 oz (10 g)
Paper panettone mould, 6 inches (15 cm) wide, 1
Wooden skewers, 12 inches (30 cm) long, 2

Preparation

Step 1

Reduce the coffee and make the praline. Simmer the espresso with its tablespoon of sugar until only about 3 tablespoons of dark syrup remain, then cool it. Separately take the praline sugar and water to a deep amber caramel, stir in the hazelnuts and salt, and pour the mass onto baking paper. Once cold, chop it coarsely, keeping pieces rather than powder.

Step 2

Mix the first dough. Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour and the sugar, and knead about 6 minutes to a tight, smooth, elastic ball. Work in the softened butter and knead 2 minutes more. Cover and leave at 64°F to 66°F (18°C to 19°C) for 12 hours. It should triple and smell faintly of yoghurt and wine. If it has only doubled, give it two hours more.

Step 3

Build the final dough. Put the first dough into a stand mixer with the dough hook, add the new flour and half the sugar, and mix on low for 8 minutes until the mass gathers on the hook and leaves the sides clean. Add the rest of the sugar, then the yolks one at a time, the coffee reduction in three additions, then the honey, vanilla seeds and orange zest. Each addition must disappear before the next.

Step 4

Work in the butter, then the salt. The dough looks alarmingly slack after the coffee: keep mixing and it gathers back onto the hook within four minutes. Only then start the soft butter, a tablespoon at a time, waiting each time for the dough to turn smooth and glossy again. This takes 12 to 15 minutes and cannot be hurried. Add the salt with the last butter, and check that the dough stretches into a thin translucent sheet.

Step 5

First rise. Round the dough, put it in a lightly buttered container, cover it and leave it at 78°F (26°C) for about 1 hour, then refrigerate 30 minutes. The chill is purely practical: cold dough takes the gianduia without smearing it and holds a shape while you work.

Step 6

Laminate the gianduia and the praline. Press the dough into a rectangle of about 10 by 14 inches (25 by 35 cm). Spread the gianduia over two thirds, dust the cocoa over it, scatter the praline, then fold the plain third over the middle and the last third over that. Press the seams closed, turn the parcel 90 degrees, roll it to half its length and fold in three again. You now have veins, not a filling.

Step 7

Shape and proof. Round the parcel on an unfloured bench with cupped hands, dragging it in tight circles until the skin is taut and the seam has vanished underneath. Drop it seam down into the paper mould, cover loosely and proof at 78°F (26°C) for 5 to 7 hours, until the crown sits about 3/4 inch (2 cm) below the rim.

Step 8

Bake. Heat the oven to 320°F (160°C), static. Uncover the panettone for 10 minutes so the surface dries, cut a shallow cross in the crown with a razor, lift the four flaps and set the cold butter cube in the centre. Bake on a low shelf 50 to 55 minutes, until the crown is deep brown and a probe pushed through the side reads 197°F (92°C). Then invert it at once, as below, while it is too hot to handle.

Plating

Panettone is served whole and cut at the table, and the cut is the only plating decision that matters. Leave the paper on, stand the cake on a wooden board and cut wedges from the top down with a long serrated knife, sawing with no downward pressure at all. Pressing closes the cells you spent nineteen hours opening.

Serve it at 68°F (20°C), never straight from a cold room. Gianduia is firm below about 60°F (16°C) and the veins turn waxy on the tongue, while at room temperature they soften and release the hazelnut. A small glass of sweet wine beside each plate is the Piedmontese way, and nothing else is needed.

Professional Technique

The technique that decides this cake is what happens in the ninety seconds after it leaves the oven. The core is at about 197°F (92°C), and at that temperature the crumb is not yet a structure. The gluten has set only partly, the starch granules are swollen but not yet firm, and the gas cells are at their largest and thinnest walled. A crumb that open cannot carry its own dome, so a cake left upright quietly sinks into itself over the next hour.

The remedy is to take the load off the dome by hanging the cake upside down. Push two long wooden skewers straight through it horizontally, crossing at right angles, entering through the paper about 3/4 inch (2 cm) above the base. That band is the densest, least aerated part of the crumb, compressed by the dough above it during proofing, so the skewers pass through tight material that closes around them instead of cutting a slot through open cells. Never skewer the middle or the shoulder, where the cells are largest and the wood tears a channel and lets the cake slide. Invert it and rest the skewer ends on two supports, so the dome hangs free.

Leave it hanging at least 6 hours, and overnight is better. The rush to cut is the commonest error, because the cake looks finished long before it is: the setting happens as the crumb cools through about 130°F (55°C) towards 85°F (30°C), while the starch retrogrades and the gluten stiffens into whatever shape it holds. A panettone cooled upright says so plainly. The crown is concave rather than domed, the sides bulge outward, and the bottom inch carries a dense band where the cells have been squeezed into flat horizontal streaks instead of the round irregular holes above.

Texture and Moisture Control

This dough sits close to the upper limit of fat and sugar a yeast raised structure can carry, and its texture follows from that. The butter and the five yolks coat the gluten strands and hold water inside the crumb, which is why a well made panettone is still soft a week later while an ordinary sweet bread is stale in two days. The lecithin in the yolks does most of that work, so cutting the yolks to lighten the recipe does not give a lighter cake, it gives a drier one that ages in a day.

The coffee is where this version can go wrong on moisture. Espresso is water, and three tablespoons of it in an already slack dough will soften the structure past the point where it holds a dome. Reducing it to a syrup concentrates the flavour into a third of the volume, so the taste of a full cup arrives with very little free water. The bake is the same calculation: pulling the cake at 197°F (92°C) leaves the crumb just set and still holding steam, while 205°F (96°C) drives that steam out and gives a crumb that is dry by the third day.

Professional Mise en Place

This is a two day preparation with two long unattended waits, so the planning is mostly timing. Mix the first dough after dinner, build the final dough the next morning, bake in the late afternoon and hang the cake overnight.

Equipment and tools

Stand mixer with a dough hook, and a probe thermometer
Paper panettone mould of 6 inches (15 cm) and two long wooden skewers
Two upturned stockpots or a raised rack to hang the cake between
Razor blade for the cross and a small heavy pan for the caramel

Prepared ahead

Coffee reduction, up to 3 days ahead, refrigerated in a sealed jar
Hazelnut praline, up to 1 week ahead, chopped and kept airtight
First dough, mixed 12 hours before the final dough
Butter softened to a paste but not melted, yolks at room temperature

Service setup

A proofing spot held steady at 78°F (26°C), away from draughts
Oven preheated 30 minutes before the proof is due to finish
Skewers and supports laid out before the cake leaves the oven
Long serrated knife and a wooden board for service

Chef Tips

Buy gianduia paste rather than making it, and read the label. A paste with 30 percent or more hazelnut tastes of the Langhe, while one with 13 percent tastes of sugar and bakes into a flat sweet streak.

Pull the darkest espresso you can and reduce it the day before. A reduction judged while hot always looks thinner than it is, and cooling it in the jar tells you whether you have a syrup or a sauce before it goes near the dough.

Weigh everything. A few grams of extra flour across two mixes changes the hydration enough to hold the dome back, and there is no correcting it later. The US volumes here are honest conversions, but a scale is safer.

Judge the proof by eye and touch, not by the clock. Five hours in a warm kitchen does what seven does in a cool one. You want the crown about 3/4 inch (2 cm) below the rim and a surface that trembles when tapped. Past the rim it tears in the oven.

Common Mistakes

Cooling the panettone upright. The dome falls into a concave crown and the base compresses into a dense band, and none of it can be undone. Skewer the cake low and hang it inverted for at least 6 hours.

Skewering too high. Wood driven through the open middle or the shoulder tears a channel and the cake slides down its own supports. Enter 3/4 inch (2 cm) above the base, through the tight crumb.

Adding the butter too fast. Fat introduced faster than the gluten can absorb it coats the strands, and the dough stays greasy and broken however long you mix. One tablespoon at a time, waiting for glossiness.

Using unreduced coffee. A full cup of espresso is a cup of water and slackens the dough past the point where it can carry a dome. Reduce it so the flavour arrives without the liquid.

Baking to 205°F (96°C) at the core. The extra degrees drive out the steam the crumb needs to stay soft and the cake is dry by the third day. Pull it at 197°F (92°C) and let the inversion finish the setting.

Wine Pairing

Moscato di Scanzo DOCG: The most precise match here. Dried on the vine and aged in wood, it gives sweet red fruit, rose and a cinchona bitterness over a light tannic frame, and that bitterness lets a sweet red meet cocoa without turning metallic. Its sweetness sits just below the gianduia, so the wine reads as fruit, not sugar.

Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG: The classic sweet red for chocolate, and it works for its structure more than its sugar. Appassimento concentrates dried cherry and cocoa aromas that meet the gianduia on equal terms, while the tannin scrubs butter and hazelnut fat off the palate. Serve at 61°F (16°C) so the alcohol stays under the coffee.

Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: The oxidative choice, and the one that flatters the nuts most. Years in small barrels under a warm roof build the toasted hazelnut and dried apricot notes that run parallel to the praline, and the high acidity cuts a crumb carrying a hundred grams of butter.

Marsala DOC: A Superiore Dolce gives the deepest echo of the coffee. Fortification and long cask ageing produce caramel, dried fig and roasted notes that sit directly on the espresso in the crumb, and the higher alcohol carries the fat away cleanly. Pour it in small quantity: it is the most powerful bottle here.

Moscato d'Asti DOCG: The Piedmontese habit and the lightest option, poured with panettone across the region every December. Low alcohol, gentle fizz and orange blossom aromas refresh the palate against all that butter, and the bubbles lift the crumb instead of weighing it down. Choose it for the hazelnut rather than the chocolate.

Storage & Reheating

Once the cake is cold, slide it paper and all into a food safe bag, press the air out and seal it. At cool room temperature it stays soft for 7 to 10 days and improves over the first two, as the coffee settles into the crumb and stops tasting like a separate addition. Never refrigerate it: starch retrogrades fastest just above freezing, and a day in the cold stales it more than a week on the counter.

It freezes well whole or in wedges, wrapped tight and bagged, for up to 3 months. Thaw it still sealed at room temperature for 4 to 6 hours, never from frozen in a warm oven, which sets a dry rim while the middle is still cold. Refresh slightly dry slices with 4 minutes at 300°F (150°C) and eat them within the hour.