Mini Panettone with Vanilla Cream

Ingredients

• 400 g flour
• 0.5 cube yeast (21 g)
• 50 g sugar
• 100 ml lukewarm milk
• 1 tsp grated lemon zest
• 175 g soft butter
• 3 eggs
• 75 g candied fruit (e.g., orange peel, cherries, lemon peel)
• 40 ml rum
• 50 g Raisins
• 50 g almond sticks
• powdered sugar (for dusting)
• 500 ml milk
• 1 vanilla pod
• 6 egg yolks
• 100 g sugar
• 2 tbsp flour
• a pinch salt
• 150 ml whipping cream

Instructions

1. 1.

   Sift the flour into a bowl and form a well in the center. Crumble the yeast into it and mix with 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp milk. Cover and let rise for about 20 minutes. Then add the remaining milk, remaining sugar, lemon zest, butter, eggs and knead into a smooth dough that releases from the bowl edges. Cover again and let rise for another 30 minutes.

2. 2.

   Preheat the oven to 180 °C fan. Line mini loaf tins (about 200 ml capacity) with parchment paper.

3. 3.

   Chop the fruit and soak it with raisins in rum. Mix in the almonds, then knead into the dough and shape into 12 balls. Place them in the tins and bake for 35–40 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, let cool briefly, then take out of tins and cool completely. Cut a lid off each mini cake and hollow it out.

4. 4.

   For the cream cut the vanilla pod lengthwise, scrape out the seeds and stir into milk until boiling. Beat egg yolks with sugar in a bowl until creamy, fold in flour. Slowly pour the hot milk in a thin stream into the yolk mixture while whisking; return everything to the pot, remove the pod, and simmer gently on low heat without boiling, stirring constantly. Let cool slightly with occasional stirring. Finally whip cream stiffly and fold it into the custard. Fill the panettone shells, replace lids, dust with powdered sugar and serve.