Pandoro is the star of Verona on our Christmas tables.

How can one not love the pandoro? Soft and delicate, this sweet, along with panettone, is unmissable on Christmas tables. It's impossible not to recognize the pandoro when you see it: soft and with the typical golden color of the dough, fragrant with vanilla and powdered sugar, with its classic star shape, this sweet is truly a star, a star that today we will get to know better.
Let's immediately look into a bit of history, the original recipe, and some variations, keeping in mind one thing: the preparation of pandoro, much like that of panettone, is quite complicated, requiring several steps and also a lot of time. However, it may happen that you feel like trying something new, so why not give it a shot?
Put on your apron, we fly to Verona: here are the true origins of pandoro.

The True Story of Pandoro

Everyone now knows that pandoro originates from Verona, but have you ever wondered what the true story behind this famous sweet is? Well, you should know that behind this sweet there is a name you probably know well, that of Domenico Melegatti, a Veronese pastry chef who, on October 14, 1884, was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Kingdom of Italy to create a new Christmas sweet.

It was a great honor for pastry chef Melegatti, who chose to draw inspiration from the tradition of his Verona, where in some provincial areas the Levà, a leavened sweet covered with almonds and sugar, had been prepared since ancient times. Melegatti decided to start from the same recipe but modified it to make it softer: he added eggs and butter, which are still today the secret of the sweet, while eliminating the almond topping, resulting in a white, soft, and fluffy leavened product.
He did not invent the typical star shape that characterizes the sweet. The iconic silhouette of pandoro is the creation of Angelo Dall’Oca Bianca, a painter who created the mold with eight points. The result of the collaboration of these two minds is known to all: a soft and fluffy golden star, delicately dusted with powdered sugar and with the sublime aroma of butter and sugar. What could be more poetic? It’s no coincidence that pandoro was a huge success, immediately becoming part of the Italian Christmas tradition. But where does the name come from? Don’t worry, we have an answer for that too.
According to a legend, the name was given by Melegatti himself, who, after taking the sweet out of the oven, exclaimed “Pan de oro!”, surprised by the golden color of the dough.

The Traditional Recipe for Pandoro

We warn you: the pandoro recipe is very, very complicated. It indeed requires more kneads and thus many hours of work, but we assure you that, with a bit of precision, the result could really amaze you.

Ingredients for the first dough:
Manitoba flour 45g
Water 30g
Fresh yeast 5g

Ingredients for the second dough:
Manitoba flour 90g
Sugar 20g
Eggs 50g
Yeast 7g

Ingredients for the third dough:
Manitoba flour 210g
Sugar 90g
Acacia honey 10g
Eggs 100g
Egg yolks 20g
Vanilla pod 1
Soft butter 125g

First dough (to be prepared the evening before): pour all the ingredients into a bowl, then mix them by hand to create a homogeneous dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let it mature at room temperature until the next morning.

Second dough: take the first dough, pour it into a mixer with a hook and add the flour, sugar, and crumbled fresh yeast. Start the machine and knead at medium speed. After a few minutes add the egg and continue working until you obtain a homogeneous dough. Transfer the mixture to a lightly floured work surface and fold it, bringing the side edges inward several times, then form a spherical shape. Place the dough sphere with the folds facing down against the bottom of the bowl, then cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise for at least two hours in a turned-off oven with the light on until it has doubled in volume.

Third dough: take dough 2 and pour it into the mixer fitted with a hook, add honey, the seeds from the vanilla pod, sugar, and flour, then start to work the mixture with the mixer. After a few minutes, add the eggs and yolks gradually, allowing them to be absorbed slowly. In the end, the dough should be very elastic and hydrated. At this point, add the softened butter to the dough, a piece at a time, then stop the mixer. Turn it out onto a work surface and then, using a pastry spatula, make the reinforcing folds by taking the top edge and folding it down and then from below to above. Form a sphere and place it in the previously buttered and floured pandoro mold with the folds facing up. Allow for a final rise in a turned-off oven with the light on for at least 8-12 hours. Retrieve the mold, place a bowl of hot water at the bottom of the oven, and heat in static mode at 140-150°C, and bake the pandoro on the top shelf of the oven for 55 minutes, until golden brown. At this point, take it out and let it cool. Flip the mold onto a serving plate and dust with powdered sugar.
Enjoy your meal!

How to Enjoy Pandoro: Tips and Pairings

Pandoro, compared to panettone, is definitely more spectacular. Its star shape allows for many appealing compositions, real feasts of golden points, creams, and various toppings that will steal the scene from any other dessert on the table. If you want to go classic and prefer a scenic yet adult and elegant composition, serve pandoro on a stand, perhaps accompanied by a good selection of spoonable creams to cover it. A real calorie bomb, but also an irresistible delight. Go ahead with red fruit sauces, chocolate or white chocolate cream, pastry cream, or almond, coffee, or pistachio sauce. Your guests will then choose the one they like best.

Instead, pair your slice of sweet with a great bottle of wine. Compared to panettone, pandoro is a lighter sweet, delicate, and thus easier to pair. A classic pairing is with sparkling wine to finish the meal: a good Moscato d’Asti, fragrant, and elegant, or a Franciacorta are definitely ideal. Another option can be a good passito, like Malvasia, fresh but sweet enough to be paired with pandoro.
If you prefer red wine instead, why not opt for a Porto? With its structure, it is perfect for enhancing the aromas of the good Veronese pandoro, although let's admit it: passitos remain the best choice for this sweet.
If you are a beer lover, then prefer delicate pairings by choosing beers that won’t overpower the olfactory complexity of this sweet. Excellent choices are Fruitbeers or light lagers with a good residual sugar.

Recipes with Pandoro: How to Use This Sweet in the Kitchen

Have you organized a nice dinner and have some slices of your pandoro left? No problem. You should know that pandoro, thanks to its delicacy, is much more versatile than panettone. With this leavened product, you can create numerous really tasty and appealing spoon desserts with minimal effort. One example could be pandoro tiramisu, featuring the Veronese sweet instead of the classic savoiardi. A few not-too-thick slices, plenty of coffee, cocoa, and a bit of mascarpone cream, layer it up and pop it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. And here’s a delicious spoon dessert, perfect for a hearty snack or a different kind of breakfast, not very light but oh so good. 

Alternatively, you can create a rolled pandoro, a kind of log filled with cream. Just crumble 400g of pandoro (you can also use panettone if you’ve already opened some) and mix it with 150g of condensed milk, then roll out the mixture on a sheet of parchment paper, creating a regular rectangular shape. Separately, prepare a cream: Greek yogurt, a tablespoon of honey, and red fruits. Spread it over your pandoro rectangle and slowly, using the parchment paper, roll it up, forming a “snail”. Close the ends of the parchment paper and refrigerate for at least three hours, then slice it.
Of course, these are just a few ideas, but pandoro is so good and delicate that with a pinch of creativity and a strong desire to eat something delicious, you can make many other delicious preparations.

How to Purchase a Top-Quality Pandoro?

We have seen that pandoro is a complicated sweet, difficult to prepare, and definitely demanding. During the holidays, the days tend to be very hectic, and people think mainly about having fun, becoming a little lazier and wanting to spend time with loved ones (and that’s fine). Thus, buying this D.O.C. Veronese sweet can be the perfect solution to enjoy a delicious dessert without sacrificing hours that could be spent on oneself or with loved ones.
But how to choose the perfect pandoro, the one that can win over adults and children as soon as it's placed on the table?
As always, there is one thing that comes to our aid in these situations: the label. When making such a purchase, it's always good to take a look at the list of ingredients to check the composition of your favorite sweet, especially to avoid buying poor imitations, which are becoming increasingly present on the market.

Pandoro is a soft-textured sweet, with no crust, and has a delicate aroma of butter and vanilla. Flour, sugar, eggs, butter, yeast, vanilla: few ingredients, but of high quality. These ingredients must be listed on the label, and there should NOT be any vegetable fats present (unless it is a vegan pandoro, whose recipe is totally different. In this case, it must also be indicated on the packaging). The leavening, as with panettone, should be long and natural, and it is good that this is explicitly stated on the packaging. 
As you will have noticed, these are not many things to keep in mind, but simple tips for choosing the perfect sweet for your celebrations.
If in doubt, take a look at our portal. We are sure you will find exactly what you are looking for!

S&M