220 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature - plus extra for greasing
For the fruit:
50 grams raisins
50 grams dried cranberries
50 grams candied peel
3 tablespoons marsala wine
3 tablespoons boiling water
For the glaze:
40 grams ground almonds
60 grams caster sugar
1 teaspoon plain flour
½ teaspoon cornflour
50 grams egg white
To decorate:
2 tablespoons pearl sugar
1 tablespoon flaked almonds
Steps
Make the sponge: Put 100 grams of flour into the bowl of your stand mixer, with the yeast and warm milk. Mix by hand with a spatula then cover and leave for 45 minutes, until doubled in size.
Soak the fruit: Put the raisins, cranberries, candied peel and marsala wine into a small mixing bowl and add 3 tablespoons of boiling water. Mix then cover and leave at room temperature overnight.
Make the dough: In a new bowl, whisk together the remaining 300 grams of flour and salt.
Uncover your sponge and attach the bowl to your stand mixer, with the paddle attachment fitted. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing until fully combined before adding the next, then beat in the marsala wine. Add the lemon and orange zests and sugar, beat to combine then switch to the dough hook attachment.
Add half of the flour mixture and mix until well combined, then add the remaining half of the flour. Knead on low 8 minutes, then start to add the butter - a few tablespoons at a time - making sure it’s fully incorporated each time. Scrape down the dough hook then knead on low for 3 more minutes, until the dough is silky and shiny. The dough will be quite sticky - just pulling away from the sides but sticking to the bottom of the bowl. If it’s far too wet, ad a tablespoon of flour at a time until it reaches the right consistency.
Lightly grease a clean bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover with buttered cling film, then refrigerate overnight or up to 2 days
Bring the dough out of the fridge and let it rest at room temperature for 1 hour. Butter the panettone tin, line the bottom and butter the paper. Drain the fruit and discard the liquid.
Turn the dough onto a well-floured worktop and roll it out into a rectangle roughly 30 x 40 cm.
Spread the fruit over it and and press it down with your hands so that it sticks into the dough. Fold the long edges in by ⅓ - like a letter. Then fold the ends in by 1/3rd into a square. Pat out to around 4 centimetres thick, then pull up each corner towards you to make a ball. Pinch the corners together, flip the dough over and shape it into a ball then carefully drop it into the buttered panettone tin.
Cover the top of the tin loosely with buttered cling film then let it rise for 1.5 - 3 hours, until the dough is breaching the top of the mould.
Hanging the panettone: The freshly-baked panettone won’t be strong enough to hold its own weight when it comes out of the oven, and so the traditional trick is to hang it upside down for 12 hours. If using a paper mould for your panettone, you can insert 2 pieces chopsticks or pieces of wooden dowling before baking, so that it’s ready to turn over as soon as you bring it out of the oven. Insert them through the paper and dough in a cross, about an inch from the bottom. Once baked, you can rest the wooden supports on piles of cookbooks to suspend the panettone.
Make the glaze: Put the ground almonds, caster sugar, plain flour, cornflour and egg white into a small mixer or spice grinder. Blitz into a paste.
Bake the panettone: Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C fan. Use a small serrated knife or sharp blade to score the panettone, in a cross, all the way across the top. Brush on the glaze, avoiding the scoring lines then add pearl sugar and flaked almonds.
Bake the panettone for 25 minutes on the bottom shelf of your oven - or low enough for it to rise significantly. After 25 minutes, check how it’s browning and turn around if necessary. Reduce the heat to 150C / 140C fan and bake for another 30-35 minutes. Check the colour and cover with foil if you need to. While baking, prepare two piles of books to hang the panettone between. It’s cooked when the internal temperature reaches 94C. Take it straight out of the oven, turn it upside down and use the chopsticks to suspend it upside down for 12 hours.
If you baked it in a tin, remove the tin straight away after baking, insert your chopsticks and hang upside down between your piles of books.
