Christmas Pandora Recipe (Italy, Verona)

Within the Italian city of Verona there is a Christmas dessert that surely many of you have not had the opportunity to try. On this occasion, we refer to the Pandora, a sweet that is prepared with a combination of flour, yeast and sugar.

As its name indicates, the Pandoro arises after the union of the terms “bread” and “gold” due to the characteristic color that its mass acquires and how much it resembles this precious metal. However, its flavor and texture are where its best arguments to taste it are found.

Speaking a little about its history, it should be noted that the origins of this cake are still somewhat confusing. It was the writer and scientist Pliny the Elder who first mentioned this cake made only with flour, oil or butter.

Although it was not until the height of the Renaissance when the consumption of pandoro began to spread through those banquets and large parties that only the gentrified nobles of the time used to attend. From then on, the Habsburg dynasty developed for the first time a recipe made with Vienna bread and a croissant that they began to distribute and consume among all levels of the court.

Finally, the confectioner and pastry chef Domenico Melegatti was in charge of patenting the pandoro recipe for the first time back in 1884 in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Kingdom of Italy. To do this, he was inspired by the traditional Verona recipe that was much easier to prepare. And from there it was when Italian women began to popularize the pandoro at all Christmas Eve dinners.

Pandoro recipe: ingredients and all the steps to follow

After having read all this history and curiosities of the pandoro, have you felt an overwhelming desire to prepare it with your own hands? If so, we are only going to ask you to pay close attention to all the steps to follow to make this Italian sweet a reality:

Ingredients needed for the pandoro:

• 650 grams of flour
• 300 grams of butter
• 250 grams of sugar
• 30 grams of yeast
• 8 eggs
• 100 ml of cooking cream
• Lemon zest
• icing sugar to our liking

Steps to prepare the pandoro:

1. We will start by dissolving the yeast in warm water and then add about 70 grams of flour and a tablespoon of sugar. We add an egg yolk that we will work until we get dough. We let it rest for two hours, well covered, until the yeast takes effect.
2. After this time, add another 170 grams of flour to the bread along with three egg yolks, 30 grams of butter and a couple of tablespoons of sugar. Everything will have to be kneaded vigorously again. Let it rise again for two hours and then add the rest of the flour, 80 grams of sugar, 40 grams of butter, 3 yolks and a whole egg.
3. Once we achieve this, it will be necessary to energetically knead the dough (punching it if necessary) until an elastic texture is obtained that does not stick to the hands. Next, we knead it again to later add the cooking cream and another egg yolk until we get smooth dough.
4. We spread all the dough on a smooth surface. We fold it up to three times and repeat the process three times in a row. Let it rest for half an hour. After this time, we knead it again for a couple of minutes with our own hands to transfer it to a conical-shaped pastry mold.

Finally, it only remains to take this pandoro dough to a preheating oven at 190 degrees for twenty minutes. After this time, we lower the temperature to 170º and reschedule for another twenty minutes. After this, we remove this sweet from the oven and sprinkle with a little icing sugar to our liking.