I was really lucky to win a Colomba kit from Bakery Bits, with the special cases for the Italian speciality bread Colomba. I have been wanting to make this for a while, it is like a Panettone but with an almond and egg white icing on top, with orange zest, fiori di sicilia essence and candied orange peel inside. And yes I KNOW it is an Easter bread.... I am late!!
Each of these amazing Italian breads has literally dozens of different methods, so I decided to use my own favourite sweet bread mixture, and add the flavourings to it. This is a very simple dough to make if you have a stand mixer, and those are the instructions I have given below.. Although it can be made by hand, it is hard work and takes a fair amount of time. You can see the hand kneading method in the videos I added into the gibassier post here.
I made it first of all for the fabulous Thane Prince Cook Book Club at the end of April (gosh that long ago already.....) but I used all of the mixture in one case. Too much of a good thing, it flowed all over the sides and looked awful. Look....
But it cut into light fluffy pieces, and everyone devoured it with much relish and lip and finger licking. Look at the lightness of this crumb.
When I made it the 2nd time, I decided to halve the quantity and use half in a colomba case, and half in two medium panettone cases, this worked fine.
The bread mixture is made over two days, which adds a lot of flavour to the bread even without the extra flavourings I add in, the preferment helps the bread to stay moist and fresh, it is at its best in the first 2-3 days, but it will keep up to a week.
Day one:
The preferment.
200g whole milk
200g strong bread flour
1 tsp instant yeast - osmotolerant like SAF Gold if you have it
Scald the milk, then allow it to cool to blood temperature (circa 35 C) - don't use it too hot or it will kill the yeast, better to have forgotten it and let it get too cool than use it too hot. When it is cool, mix with the flour and the yeast, cover with cling film and allow to ferment overnight or for around 8 hours minimum ( I have left it up to 24 hours and it is still good, though the flavour is more pronounced). It should puff up and then fall, so that it has lots of pock marks on the surface.
Day two:
The main dough.
The entire preferment above
100g whole milk (scalded and cooled to around 35 degrees C)
2 large eggs (around 120g weight of whole egg without shells)
1 tsp fiori di sicilia or any other orange essence (use a really good one)
150g Strong Bread flour
150g Romanian 000 flour if you can get it, or 00 Italian flour if not.
90g caster sugar
7g Saf gold yeast
7g salt
100g cold butter sliced into chunks
3-4 tablespoons chopped candied orange peel
Zest of one orange
Almond icing:
2 egg whites
75g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
Flaked almonds
Pearl sugar
2 x Colomba cases, Or one and a couple of medium panetonne cases
Mix the milk , eggs and all the preferment together, and then add the essence and mix again. Add the flours, sugar, salt and yeast and mix to a loose dough (you can use the beater if you like, I just use the dough hook as it will be used next. Less washing up...) . Rest in the machine for around 10 minutes so that the flour is thoroughly saturated.
Mix on low to medium power with the dough hook for around 10 minutes until mixture starts to clear the bottom of the bowl. This is a very wet mixture so don't be surprised if it looks more like a batter at the beginning. Persevere and you will see the gluten strands start to form and the entire dough will get more structured. Add the butter a little at a time mixing until it is all absorbed, continue to mix for another 5 minutes until it is smooth, coming away from the base of the mixer and will stretch into a "windowpane" - stretch a bit of the dough away from the hook and it should form a thin sheet without breaking. Add the zest and the finely chopped candied peel and mix for just a couple of minutes to incorporate them into the dough.
Cover the dough (I leave it in the food mixer bowl, taking the dough hook out) with cling film and leave for a couple of hours until it is at least tripled in size.
Turn the dough out very gently, and cut it in half, one half for each colomba or for one colomba and two smaller cakes. For each colomba, cut about one third from one piece, and split this into two pieces, put these into the mould in the spaces for the wings. Gently stretch the other piece and drop into the central area, gently prodding it into the head and tail sections. Cover and allow to recover until it is nearly to the top of the mould, roughly 45 mins. If you are making just one colomba then cut the other half into two and drop into the panettone cases, forming a colomba with the first half of the dough. (Turn the oven on now to Gas mark 7, 220 C 425 F ( it needs to be well pre-heated) and put a baking tray into the oven to heat up.
In the meantime, mix the egg whites, sugar and ground almonds together to make a very loose paste. When the dough is ready then LIGHTLY spread the mixture over each colomba using a spatula (keep it near the outside edges rather than the middle, it is heavier than the dough and may make it have a dent in the middle.) Sprinkle with pearl sugar and flaked almonds.
Gently move the moulds (it will feel very very wobbly) onto the heated baking tray, and bake for around 35-40 minutes, turning the oven down to Mk 5 190 C 375 F after 25 minutes so it doesn't burn. It needs to be well baked, or it will be doughy in the middle. If you have a probe thermometer (and I really do recommend one for baking enriched dough) the inside temperature of the cake should be at least 190 F when it is cooked.
Move to a cooling rack and let it completely cool before cutting.
This dough is wonderful, and can be used for all sorts of different cakes just by changing the flavourings. I'll be putting some other suggestions on shortly.
