I Need to Make Panettone

Photo by Romulo Yanes

ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco embarks on helping Brad successfully bake one of the most complicated yeasted breads: panettone. He enlists help from Roy Shvartzapel, who’s dedicated the better part of the last 20 years to specializing in this notoriously finicky form of baking through his mail-order panettone company, This Is From Roy. He opens up about his craft and shares key tips with Brad, most notably a willingness to experiment and embrace the journey.

Brad has attempted making The Panettone for his family for the past three years but hasn’t been able to crack the code. Often his bread simply falls out of the molds during the inverted cooling process after baking. This year he is just as determined to get it right, using Roy’s advice! What is a panettone? It is an Italian Christmas bread enriched with butter and eggs for a light and delicate texture—which often makes it a notoriously complicated multiday project. It’s filled with dense mix-ins, like dried fruit, citrus peel, and nuts, yet it has to bake into an airy loaf that is cooled upside down to preserve its open interior and avoid collapsing.

Roy, who has spent the better part of two decades perfecting panettone, steps in to save the day. He recommends Brad make a stiff starter a week in advance of baking, refreshing it frequently. He stresses the importance of the choice of flour and list options for flours milled specifically for panettone, talks us through different temperatures to use for proving the dough, and other foundational tips to secure a panettone win this Christmas.

Listen now to hear if Brad was able to pass his panettone test and conquer the panettone with the help from Chris and Roy!

Chris Morocco: Hey there, listeners, future callers and cooking enthusiasts. Welcome to Dinner SOS, the show where we help you save dinner or whatever you're cooking. I'm Chris Morocco, food director of Bon Appetit and Epicurious. Today's caller, Brad, bakes sourdough every week, but for Christmas morning, he's got a vision of something a bit more special.

Brad: My brother and I, being excited about the presents and my parents were focused on getting enough time to make coffee, and sit and have... maybe my mom would make the cinnamon buns from the can. Something nice to eat with coffee while the kids open the presents.

CM: Now, cinnamon buns from the can or even from scratch, not that difficult for a baker with Brad's experience, but Brad's not trying to make any old sweet bread. He's calling on his Italian-American heritage, and...

B: I have three times tried to make panettone.

CM: Oh, yeah. Can you just level-set for our audience what is panettone?

B: So, panettone is an Italian Christmas bread that is very rich with butter and eggs, and has dried fruit, and usually citrus peel, sometimes nuts. And it's so rich and so dense with the fruit and nuts that are included in it that you have to let it cool upside down, otherwise it will collapse in on itself.

CM: Right. It's sort of accomplishing two things at once, which is to be incredibly light, airy, and tender, and yet being completely suffused with solid pieces of mix-ins, which themselves are relatively dense and weighty or can be. Does that feel fair to say?

B: Exactly.

CM: That signature panettone move, cooling it upside down is what has made the past three years of failed attempts so devastating for Brad. Every time the bread is looking good out of the oven, but minutes into the cooling process, plop, one or both of the loaves falls right out of the mold.

B: The loaf splits in half, the top of it falls out. There's still some that's attached to the bottom of the mold.

CM: You've suspended these things. You thought you had a great rise, great bake, and it goes wrong. Bring me back to that moment. How are you feeling?

B: Crushed. Just crushed.

CM: I mean, it's like got to be so disappointing.

B: It is. It helped this time that we had the sheet trays under there, so I try to stay positive. I know there's bread pudding in the future.

CM: Sure. I mean, there's always bread pudding. Big whoop.

B: Yeah. And I know that there's the part of the bottom that you can eat, but it's a three-day process.

CM: Right. This is three days of your life.

B: Yes, exactly. It's a huge amount of work. There's a schedule in the cookbook that then you map to our schedule of what we're doing for Christmas Eve and getting together with my in-laws. And so, no matter how good the leftover panettone that's still stuck to the mold is, or the bread pudding is going to be, when both fall out of the mold, I think I sat on the floor just because I thought it was going so well. I thought I had, it was just like an issue with the rise that I had figured out. And when it's a bread and it looks right, you want it to bake right. And it had baked pretty well. So, for it to fall out, just-

CM: Maybe you've eaten panettone from the grocery store or maybe you've only seen the signature paper boxes it's sold in. Either way, I bet you haven't thought much about what goes into making an excellent panettone. Even leaving aside the gonzo upside down cooling, panettone is a notoriously complicated bake. Many, many steps and multiple days of work go into making an excellent panettone. I'm going to explain it broadly using the recipe that Brad made from Melissa Weller's cookbook, A Good Bake, as my guide.

The process starts with what is called a stiff sourdough starter. Basically a sourdough starter with a higher ratio of flour to water. You use that to make the first dough with starter flour, egg yolks, butter, sugar, and honey. Once it proves for about half a day, you use that first dough to make a second dough enriching it with more flour, sugar, vanilla, egg yolk, and a whole bunch of those delicious mix-ins that Brad mentioned. That second dough ferments for another two hours. Then you shape the panettone into two loaves and put them in cylindrical paper molds with skewers stuck through them. Once shaped, the loaves need to prove again. Then finally, you bake, and cool upside down, and in Brad's case, sit on the floor.

You're sitting there on the floor on Christmas Eve. Are you alone?

B: No.

CM: And is that better or worse? I don't know.

B: That's better because my wife is telling me, "It's okay. We'll make bread pudding. And we're still going to eat the part that we can eat in the morning and it's still going to be nice to sit, and have coffee, and open presents, and eat the panettone that we have." And if you make two loaves, there's enough panettone to eat for a day or two from what's still stuck inside the mold.

CM: Okay.

B: But it puts a big damper on the triumphant reveal of the bread. And as a project, it was definitely something that made the project feel like it had failed. And so, in the following days, you're doing a little troubleshooting the panettone.

CM: There's a lot of second guessing going on.

B: Yeah, but also problem solving.

CM: Uh-huh. Thinking ahead already to the next bake.

B: Exactly.

CM: Okay. Well, let's make it happen. I'm fired up for this. panettone is something that I know as a consumer much more than as a baker. But I love that this is your quest. This is the journey that you're on. And I'm happy to help you. And I'm also thrilled for you that you're willing to try this in the period of time preceding the holidays. I think that is going to be time well worth spending and hopefully going to get you set up for a great Christmas. All right?

B: All right. I'm excited and I really appreciate the help.

CM: We are going to take a quick break and when we get back, Brad gets advice from a panettone master.

Welcome back, Brad.

B: Thanks, Chris.

CM: Brad, we are joined here today by Roy Shvartzapel, who is the force behind From Roy and the maker of probably, well, definitely the best panettone I have ever myself eaten. Welcome, Roy. Thank you so much for being here.

Roy Shvartzapel: Thank you for having me. It's an honor. Hi, Brad, how are you?

B: I'm good.

RS: This is super cool.

CM: Roy, can you tell Brad just a little bit about your own journey with panettone and why you've decided to spend the better part of two decades working with it?

RS: So, I mean, the short of it was in my journey as a classically trained pastry chef and baker, I had made my way to Europe. The first stop was in Paris where I worked for a year. And prior to being there, all I knew about this product was the lowest level quality version that we know in the United States, which is all we typically get, which is the $6, $7, $8 version in 7-Eleven or whatever grocery store. And we always wondered, one, who in the world buys this? And if they do, how do you even eat this because it's so awful. And so, I never gave it much thought.

And when I was in Paris, I was working at Pierre Hermé and I saw them producing this product. I mean, it obviously looked very different than what I was accustomed to seeing, but the biggest curiosity was why in the world would the best pastry shop in the world be making such a terrible product? That was my thinking until I... two things, until I observed the stress that it created within the kitchen relative to all the other products that were being made there, which I found fascinating because at this point, I had no idea anything about this product, but I was like, "Wow, I can't believe the stress this is creating in the kitchen."

CM: Now, Pierre Hermé, the place Roy worked, it's one of those Parisian bakeries that churns out literally perfect macaron and bonbons in all manner of patisserie every day of the year. The fact that this was the product that created the most stress in that kitchen says a lot.

RS: And then when I tasted it, it was one of a handful of transcendental tasting moments of my life, which was more than just delicious. Delicious I've had an innumerable number of times in my life. Even very, very delicious things, too many to count. So, this was more than that. It was of course incredibly delicious, but there were so many layers of experiences in a bite that I couldn't explain. It was this product that was seemingly very rich, but at the same time, I'm eating it and it feels very light, almost cotton candy-like in my mouth dissolving. And also realizing that I could eat a big piece, but I could continue to eat another big piece and another. And I was wondering why I don't feel disgusting. It created this moment of my brain exploding with curiosity and interest. And that was the seed. That moment was the seed of interest and curiosity, and it just spiraled from there.

CM: And you were willing to look past the stress that you saw it producing, and I'm sure the very capable bakers around you and you nonetheless wanted to tackle it yourself.

RS: Well, the degree of difficulty and stress was one of the leading things that drew me to it. I'm generally drawn to things that most people are going to say are not possible. And so, if everyone is saying that this is the most difficult and challenging, and on, and on and on, and here I am observing it, knowing nothing about it, I'm like, wow, that was remarkable.

CM: Yeah. Tell us, I mean, I guess just some snapshots along the way of in your journey towards mastering this food, if I can be so bold to say that.

RS: I'm still on that journey.

CM: Okay. Well, at least from where you had that first taste to where you are now, what are some of the key moments there?

RS: Oh, man. I mean, the first is months, and months, and months of just observing people who are very good at this doing it, notes, videos. And then you get into the endless amount of repetition and failure required to, at a baseline level, just give yourself a chance at maybe being able to make this product at a decent level. And every cycle is a 40 to 60 hour endeavor. And so, when something goes wrong, it's not like making a brownie where it's like, oh, just scale out the ingredients again, put it in the Kitchen aid, and we will get it in the oven in the next 15 minutes. It is quite the opposite of that.

In the baking pastry world, I say it all the time, I don't know of another one that operates like this. And it's the domino effect. Every detail and step is so critically important that when one is off, the whole house is going to collapse. And it's almost unavoidable. You could do everything. You could proof it perfectly. If you put it in an oven that sucks, guess what? Your product's going to be terrible. I think the foundational, like the house will collapse if one of these things goes wrong, is probably why most people, by the way, including professionals, just stay away from this product making it. And I get it. There's so many other products that you could be engaging with that are certainly more forgiving, but I could also argue much less rewarding.

CM: Well, Brad, I fear you are listening to this and your blood is curdling in your veins. I promise there is going to be some hope here. But how is this sounding to you, just from your experience, just dipping a toe into the panettone waters? Does this sort of sound familiar in terms of the anguish and the heartache that one can expect to encounter along the way?

B: It does sound familiar to those terms.

CM: And I think for a lot of home cooks, there's this thing that a lot of the foods that are celebration foods we make maybe once a year. There isn't this opportunity for endless repetitions outside of somebody who just devotes themselves to the single-minded pursuit of one food in particular or one dish in particular. And I know you had told me a little bit about what went wrong with a few of your attempts thus far. Brad, I'm wondering if you could quickly just recap for Roy what you've done so far on your first, second and third attempts.

B: Sure. So, the first one I try to completely naturally-

CM: I let Brad catch Roy up on his panettone fails and Brad's theories of why panettone has been such a struggle for him. And Roy had three key suggestions for how Brad could tweak his process, starting with the sourdough starter.

RS: Got to be a stiff starter. And it can't just be, "I converted it in a day or two and then went to go use it." If I were you, Brad, I would probably convert to a stiff starter for at least a week, probably feed, proof, feed again, proof twice a day for a week before attempting to use it in panettone.

CM: Wow.

RS: The other thing I wanted to mention to Brad, the choice in flour to say that it is religiously critical to the process and certainly your end result, would be understating it. So, Brad, I have a question. What flour did you use?

B: I think I used the King Arthur bread.

RS: Yeah. So, panettone flour is a very specific flour that is designed for products that, and there aren't many, that live in this space. Namely very enriched products that require very long fermentation and long mixing. And it's not enough to say, oh, well, this panettone flour from Italy has this protein content. I bought the King Arthur one that... I mean, the protein content is one of just dozens of parameters. But then there's the process, the process of how they're milling, how they're storing, how they're cooling. And they've been doing this for so long that these flours really lend themselves incredibly well to the incredibly long fermentation of a really enriched product.

And it's not enough to say, "Oh, but I bought a really strong bread flour." I want to say four holidays ago, the distributor that I get my flour from that brings it in from Italy, got totally... my order of endless number of pallets, got totally F'd and I didn't have it, but we were in the middle of production and I needed to solve. And there was no delaying production. There was nothing I could do. I had to solve this.

And a wonderful American mill, I got their strongest flour I could find. We did a batch of 600 panettone in the mix, super strong, felt great. Fermentation was great. It was moving nicely. We rolled them in the oven, they're popping, they're explosive in the oven. I'm like, yes, crisis averted. We start pulling them out and flipping them one by one, every single one fell out of the mold.

B: No, 600.

RS: And the ones that didn't fall out of the mold when we cut them open the next day, they had five to six inch holes right in the middle of the product. And so, when I tell you the choice in flour is in terms of raw material journey, it is the beginning of any good or bad decision that will be made after that. You could do everything perfect, if you're not using the right flour, good luck.

CM: The last suggestion Roy had for Brad was about the proving temperature.

RS: Generally speaking, warmer is better. And by that I mean that you could maintain around 85, 86 degrees.

CM: That's a lot warmer than I ever would've expected.

B: Yeah, really.

CM: Way above ambient temperature unless you live, I don't know where.

RS: And it's not that it can't work at ambient temperature, it was my suggestion-

CM: No, totally.

RS: ... to a beginner. Because ambient also is a subjective term.

CM: Of course.

RS: I know people, when you say ambient to them, that's 68. I also know people that ambient to them is 75. Seven degree difference for fermentation is laughably big.

B: And our ambient temperature is 66 to 68, so I was really aiming to get us up to 75. So, even knowing to aim towards 85, 86 is really good.

CM: Brad, are you feeling excited to try again for a pre-Christmas dry run?

B: I am. I am feeling excited.

CM: Amazing. And Roy, can't thank you enough for joining us and really resetting.

RS: It's my pleasure, Chris.

CM: And also just pointing to the beauty in the failures and the beauty in the process. I think that's honestly a really helpful reframing about what this is all about.

RS: Sure. Be patient, be kind to yourself, enjoy all of it, including the, I just spent 50 hours caring for this container of flour and water like it was a child, and in the all I did was chop this stuff up and make bread pudding. Right?

B: It's always bread pudding.

RS: Even that you should find some joy in. The ultimate prize is the process, I promise you.

CM: I love that. So, thank you for sharing your wisdom. And Brad, listen, we cannot wait to hear how the next one goes. And if there's even just incremental improvement, honestly, we'll chalk that up for a win.

B: Sounds good.

CM: Thank you both.

B: Thank you guys.

CM: So, we sent Brad off to do a pre-Christmas test bake of the panettone with a couple of variables tweaked. After another break, we'll hear whether Brad was able to nail it.

Brad, how are you? How's it going?

B: It's going pretty well.

CM: So, let's get into it. The reason that we're here is panettone. I don't want to know right away how it went. I want to tease it out of you because there's so many different layers of nuance to this conversation. And I don't know what the conversation with Roy was like for you. I found it strangely uplifting, but wow, it feels like he has journeyed to the heart of panettone and a different person came back from the trip. You know what I mean?

B: I do, yes.

CM: It's like panettone is life, but panettone is also death, but panettone is also panettone kind of energy to him. Is that fair?

B: That is totally fair. So, I decided to change a couple of things. I decided to stick with the recipe that I had tried twice before now. And on Roy's advice, I decided to make sure that I kept the temperature warm, as warm as effectively I could get it and as consistent as I could get it.

CM: And that was for the assembled dough, correct? Even prior to that, you made your stiff starter, right?

B: Yep. I did the stiff starter a full week in advance.

CM: And you're refreshing it every day for a week?

B: I'm refreshing it two to three times a day for a week.

CM: Stop it.

B: Yes.

CM: And you were using the new flour. How did the new flour feel? Could you tell that there was a difference right out of the gate?

B: Yes, it's very fine. And it was really stretchy, but also strong, and a little bit golden in color. This was very interesting.

CM: So, already you're seeing differences for the first dough, and how are you feeling?

B: Good. I would say that as I was getting the first dough made, I felt good about it because the starter had risen, it had doubled as I wanted it to. It mixed in nicely. The dough mixed with more strength than expected. And so far, I'd been good at holding the temperature. So, I went with my previous method, which had been to microwave a mug full of water for about two minutes and then leave the mug in the microwave with the door shut with the dough that I wanted to proof.

CM: Ooh. And did you have a thermometer probe in there by any chance?

B: I did. And I did testing over the course of the week and found I could get it up to about 82 if I would then refresh that water every hour or two.

CM: Okay.

B: And as it turned out, so I think what I ended up doing was making the first dough and then it rises overnight. And we actually had a friend over for dinner, so I was like, "Look at this crazy thing I'm doing."

CM: "Look at what Chris got me into."

B: Exactly. And then before bed, I refreshed the water again so that the temperature would stay warm overnight.

CM: Got it.

B: So, in the morning-

CM: Wake up the next morning.

B: Bubbles.

CM: Bubbles.

B: Easily doubled. It looks like the picture for once. Feeling great.

CM: Okay. Not cocky, but good.

B: Exactly. The problem is it's a two-day process. And as my previous experience has shown, it can fail at any of the points.

CM: Yeah, don't spike the ball in the five-yard line. Okay. So, you incorporate that into the second dough.

B: Right. Which means more butter, more eggs, and now the vanilla bean, the-

CM: The inclusions.

B: Yeah, the cherries, the pistachios.

CM: The bits, the bobs, the [inaudible 00:25:39].

B: Yeah, the orange peel. Yeah. All the stuff that helps make it delicious.

CM: Absolutely.

B: So, we incorporate all that stuff and the mixing in all goes well, still looks really nice and strong. And now I'm counting on the flour to stay strong through the second rise with all the stuff in it.

CM: All right, so you have this dough, it's mixed, you're feeling good about it.

B: So, unfortunately I was not able to devote entire day just to sit home and do this.

CM: Sure. Yeah.

B: We had plenty of things to do, including my son, he's on a rock climbing team.

CM: Oh, heavens.

B: This is my fault because my wife and I are rock climbers.

CM: Oh, gosh. So, the second dough is fermenting, but you've got stuff going on.

B: Right. So, I ferment the second dough.

CM: In the microwave.

B: Yeah, in the microwave, nice and warm, also does a bulk fermentation. And we go to the farmer's market, we come back, I check it, not doubled. And since Roy said you can fall down at any time, I said, okay, it's not doubled, not going to do anything yet.

CM: Okay.

B: So, I think we put it back in and let it warm up. And by the time we were ready to go to climbing practice, it has then fully doubled. It looks nice and bubbly. We're again approaching the pictures in the book.

CM: Great.

B: So, I shape it, and I could actually get tension in the dough, and form it into a nice shape and place it in the mold prescured.

CM: Back into the microwave.

B: Back into the microwave to climbing practice. And I'm at climbing practice worrying about the panettone. Is it rising? Is it rising too much?

CM: Is the belay on? Who knows we've got panettone at home?

B: Exactly. We're like, we can stop at home and check it before we go to lunch. Right?

CM: You're like paying babysitter to stay at the panettone.

B: That would've been good.

CM: At any point, are you feeling hopeful?

B: I mean, the thing is I'm feeling hopeful the whole time. Everything's going so well.

CM: Okay.

B: And I'm trusting in the temperature control, I'm trusting in the flour. It's rewarding my waiting.

CM: Okay.

B: I come back from climbing practice, the recipe says between one and a half inches and an inch from the top of the mold. And it is right in that zone now.

CM: Great.

B: So, they go in the oven, the house begins smelling delicious.

CM: Yeah. Okay, great. You got the light on?

B: Oh, yes. The light is on.

CM: Whole family's in beach chairs in front of the oven, light stays on. Am I overselling it?

B: My wife and I, anyway, I think my son is playing with Lego, so he is not bothered.

CM: Okay, fair. Your wife and you are in the beach chairs.

B: Exactly.

CM: With a drink, watching the oven. What are you seeing?

B: Seeing a good rise. I think the recipe has you bake for 30 minutes and then rotate for five more minutes.

CM: Gosh, that's a fast bake. Okay. Yep.

B: Browning nicely. Everything looks good. When I take it out to rotate, it's risen above the top of the mold, which it's never done before. We never crested the top of the mold.

CM: So, already we've achieved something.

B: Exactly.

CM: Okay.

B: I have set up at this point a cooling station. In the meantime, since the last year we've done it, we've gotten new kitchen chairs and I can no longer put it between the kitchen chairs.

CM: Oh, okay. Yeah, fair.

B: But I did get vices for waxing snowboards. I can put broomsticks on top of those.

CM: Easy.

B: And then lay the panettone down in the middle. So, the station's ready. I get my cookie sheets underneath.

CM: Oh, nervous. Oh, god. My palms are sweating. I think my feet are sweating, too. I feel clammy.

B: So, we get him out, bring him over, do the flip, lay him down, one, two, and everything's fine.

CM: Okay.

B: And we walk away. I couldn't take it anymore, so I start tidying the living room. I'm moving stuff around just generally cleaning up a little bit so that I'm near the panettone, but I can't sit there and watch it. And then we start talking about when it was that the previous panettone has fallen out. With the last attempt, it was almost immediate.

CM: Really?

B: Flip them, and I walked away and they fell. That's what I remember. The first time though, we couldn't remember, was it a little bit after? Was it five minutes? Was it 15 minutes? So, I set up a stopwatch and I said, after 15 minutes, I'm going to feel good about this.

CM: 15 minutes.

B: Well, 15 minutes was the time that I assigned to myself.

CM: How long though, are they supposed to stay upside down? Just like what is the full duration that's expected of you?

B: Overnight.

CM: Okay. So, nominally, they need to stay upside down overnight, but after 15 minutes you're willing to declare victory. All right. Just hit me with it. I can take it.

B: They were fine.

CM: Stop it.

B: They would get cooled. They stayed in the molds.

CM: I thought you were building up to something horrific.

B: Nope. But I was-

CM: I thought you were going to describe the scene of an accident. Is this just how you tell stories with always the implication that something horrific may have happened at any point?

B: Generally, no. But that was how I felt this whole time.

CM: Okay, fair. Well, after what you've been through, it wouldn't be unreasonable.

B: Yeah. When you said after 15 minutes, then you declared victory, it was like, no, after 15 minutes I relaxed a little bit, and then after 45 minutes I relaxed it a little bit more. I declared victory the next morning.

CM: Oh, that is amazing. And they were still there?

B: They were still there. Both of them.

CM: Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you come downstairs, the two loaves are intact, upside down. What are you thinking? What are you feeling?

B: Relief and excitement because in some sense, what I was aiming for was not failing. And so, not failing is relief. But as someone who likes to bake, and cook and mess with things, not failing means I can move on to, well, if I let it go a little bit longer, maybe it could rise a little bit higher. And what about that glaze that you can make? That's one of the options on the recipe. And should I have scored it, maybe we can mess with the fleet. So, some years you could have chocolate in there or I was like, what if I put dried mango in there? Dried mango would be good.

CM: Whoa.

B: Just crazy ideas.

CM: Whoa.

B: And we have friends who love food, and we never know what to get them for Christmas, and I was like, well, I could bake them panettone because I could be fairly certain it would be giftable at the time. As soon as everything was not failing, now is the fun part.

CM: Yeah. Well, I mean, it seems like you've raised the baseline so much.

B: That's what it felt like. So, I said to my wife, "I have to cut it in half."

CM: Yeah, I was going to say, did you just do the old Havarino?

B: I did the old Havarino, which I apologized for.

CM: That is the way.

B: Right. Okay. I'm going to get cut into the panettone. Ooh. It's funny having seen Roy's panettone, these look nothing like [inaudible 00:33:49]. But also having seen panettone at the grocery store, this is much, much airier on the inside. All the fruits and nuts are distributed equally through.

CM: Amazing.

B: And when we sit down to eat it, it's light. It's really tangy from the sourdough, but balanced by the vanilla and the buttery sweetness of all the sugar.

CM: I'm pulling up the photos that you sent in. Oh, wow. Oh, okay. Okay. I mean, here's the thing. When I look at a commercial panettone, and that's primarily what I've had in my life, I'm usually struck by the evenness of the crumb. And I don't mean that as a compliment, you know what I mean? It feels more like sliced bread like an airier grocery store loaf. Whereas yours, the irregular oblong holes of massive trapped air bubbles, this palpable sense of the dough having stretched and lifted vertically throughout the baking process, not just increased in overall volume, if that makes sense. I see that in your bread. That looks very light. And what a color. It's almost like there's saffron in there.

B: That's the flour, I think.

CM: That's the freaking flour. And damn, that is really nice. I mean, Roy's are like freakish. Roy's look like they were stretched by the hand of God. You know what I mean? But this looks incredible. Wow. I'm really struck by what a phenomenal outcome this is. And this is something that's close to home for you too though. I understand that you're Italian American through your dad's side, and this is something that seems like it's a little bit in the blood.

B: Yeah, the reason I started on the panettone was that we tend to do New Year's with my wife's family who are Greek-American. And so, I wanted to do something that was... especially when you have kids, you want to say, "Well, your mom's family is Greek-American. We are Italian-American. So, this is together, you have roots in both Greece and Italy." But also that my dad was an only child, so we didn't spend too much time with his Italian-American family. So, a lot of how I end up relating to that is through food. And so, being able to try and make something that would be like a special Christmas occasion and a ritual that would also gesture back to those roots felt like a reason to undertake something that was objectively difficult and perhaps crazy.

CM: Nice. Well, so tell me, are you going to do all this over again come Christmastime or did you just freeze one of the loaves and you're just going to pull it out?

B: I might do it two more times.

CM: Stop it.

B: Yes.

CM: You actually will?

B: Definitely making another one for Christmas morning or another batch, and then I might also make a batch for these friends I was thinking of.

CM: Beautiful. Well, listen, Brad, I'm so happy for you. You pulled it off. And frankly, it's largely thanks to all the work that you invested in the process and just being so diligent about it. But I could not have been happier to connect you with Roy just in what makes this darn baked goods so challenging to begin with. So, good luck in your subsequent attempts and keep sending us in beautiful photos of panettone. Okay?

B: Will do. Thank you, Chris.

CM: If you have a dinner emergency on your hands, write to us at dinnersos@bonappetit.com or leave us a voice message at 212-286-SOS1. That's 212-286-7071. We'd love to feature your question on the show. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating and review on your podcast app of choice, and hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to try Roy's panettone yourself, you can order it at Thisisfromroy.com. It's pricey, but oh, so worth it. Thanks for listening to Dinner SOS. I'm your host, Chris Morocco. My co-host this week is Roy Shvartzapel. Our senior producer is Michelle O'Brien. Peyton Hayes is our associate producer. Cameron Foos is our assistant producer. Jake Lummus is our studio engineer. This episode was mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of Global Audio. Next week we're keeping it Christmas morning with Kathryn, who's looking for a savory make-ahead breakfast casserole.

Kathryn: Where it still feels exciting, like Christmas morning, something to look forward to. We get this really delicious breakfast, but also it's still comforting.

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit