PANETTONE VS PANDORO

 

PANETTONE

 

Panettone is one of the typical Italian Christmas cakes, even if a lot of people do not know its history because the birth of panettone is linked to several legends.

The most famous one tells that the panettone was born at the court of Ludovico il Moro, lord of Milan in the fifteenth century.

It was Christmas Eve when the official cook of the Sforza family inadvertently burned a cake. So Toni, the Sforza kitchen boy, decided to use a stick of yeast he had saved up for Christmas. He worked it by adding flour, eggs, raisins, candied fruit and sugar, obtaining a particularly leavened and soft dough.

The Sforza family decided to call it "pan di Toni", from which the term "panettone" will derive in the centuries to come.

The only certainty is that panettone was born in the Middle Ages and is linked to the tradition of preparing very rich loaves for Christmas, which were served by the head of the family to the diners.

At the beginning, the panettone was much lower than we know it, Angelo Motta was who decided to add butter to the recipe, making it as we see it today.

PANDORO

 

Also for the pandoro there is no certain evidence regarding its origins. The only certainty is that pandoro was born in Verona, when the pastry chef Domenico Melegatti obtained the patent for a Christmas cake from the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Kingdom of Italy.

It was October 14, 1884 and since then Christmas would never be the same!

Melegatti used Levà, a leavened cake covered with almonds and sugar, adding eggs and butter, but eliminated the covering, to make the dough very soft and smooth.

The star shape was created by Angelo Dall’Oca Bianca. The pandoro was immediately a great success and became part of the Italian Christmas tradition.

According to a legend, the name was given to it by a pastry chef who was surprised by its golden color and called it "Pan d’oro", hence the current term pandoro.

 

MY CHOICE

 

Between pandoro and panettone I prefer panettone. In the latest years many new flavors have come out, while Pandoro offers less variety.

My favourite panettone is Fiasconaro, a very famous Sicilian pastry firm that in recent years has put its products on the market.

In addition to being very good, the panettone is sold in tin boxes – smaller or bigger according to the size of the panettone  - which have different typical Sicilian motifs drawn on them.

EDOARDO, 4sc