Panettone at Puratos: 3 days of trials

Three days of panettone trials at Puratos

Thierry Clausse and Xavier Le Benoist took part in three days of training and trials dedicated to panettone production at Puratos, alongside Italian pastry chef Antonio Montalto and the Durrer Spezialmaschinen AG team. The aim: to identify the settings best suited to this demanding dough, from final rounding through to cooling..

Puratos, a partner in bakery and patisserie innovation

Founded in Belgium in 1919, Puratos is an international group specialising in the bakery, patisserie and chocolate sectors. It supports craft bakers, industrial producers, distributors and foodservice operators in more than 100 countries, supplying ingredients, solutions and services designed for professionals.

Innovation and the sharing of expertise are central to its approach. The group runs an international network of innovation centres and research and development competence centres, where it works with customers and partners on new recipes, techniques and solutions. It was in this context that these three days of trials took place.

Panettone, a product that leaves little room for approximation

Panettone brings together most of the difficulties a baker can face on a mechanised line. The dough is highly hydrated and rich in fat, sugar and eggs. It relies on a natural sourdough starter, the lievito madre, and on long fermentation times spread over several hours.

The resulting gluten network is both strong and fragile. At the rounding stage it has to be tightened enough to give the dough piece its structure and consistency, without being degassed or torn. Every stage of the process, from mixing through to cooling, has a direct influence on the crumb structure and on the final development of the product. That is precisely what these trials set out to measure.

Final rounding of dough pieces with the RotaBall

Among the equipment studied, the RotaBall®, an eccentric rounder designed for the final rounding of dough pieces, was the subject of specific trials. Its movement reproduces the baker's own gestures in order to preserve the structure of the dough as far as possible, particularly on hydrated or fermented doughs.

Our teams worked on the tightening settings in order to adapt rounding to the specific requirements of panettone. Several configurations were compared to observe their effect on the consistency of the dough pieces and on dough strength before final proof.

Baking and cooling with the Durrer Vacuum Cooler

The trials continued with baking and cooling using the Vacuum Cooler from Durrer Spezialmaschinen AG. Vacuum cooling rapidly brings down the core temperature of the product after baking. On a product as rich and as fragile as panettone, control of this stage determines crumb stability and shelf life.

A range of parameters were observed and adjusted in order to measure their influence on the finished product.

What these trials bring to our customers

Combining Antonio Montalto's baking expertise, the craft know-how of the Puratos teams and the equipment mastery of MERAND and Durrer makes it possible to move machine settings forward on doughs known to be difficult to mechanise. The lessons learned over these three days feed directly into the support we provide to bakers and industrial producers looking to develop panettone production or to work with highly hydrated doughs.

Our thanks to Antonio Montalto, to the Durrer Spezialmaschinen AG team and to Puratos for their welcome and for three days of valuable exchange.