Complement your holiday table with panettone and limoncello

This holiday season, add the Italian sweet bread, panettone, and the Italian lemon liqueur, limoncello, to your table. Not only do they complement one another, there's an assortment of recipes that combine both products or use one or the other for a new twist on flavorful dining.

Panettone is a sweet yeast bread made with raisins, citron, pine nuts and anise. It's baked in a tall, cylindrical straight-sided mold called a panettone pan. It originated in Milan, Italy, according to "The Food Lover's Companion." Traditionally, it is served at Christmastime, but also at celebrations. It can be served as a bread, coffee cake or dessert.

It's available at stores, but you'll have to check around.

You can also make your own panettone using a bread machine and a recipe from Fleischman Yeast. "The panettone recipe couldn't have been easier," says recipe tester KayLynne Schaller. "It was pretty and yellow and using the bread machine, it was a tall loaf." Slices of the panettone were very good toasted for breakfast the next day.

(When making this recipe, if you can't find ground anise seed, buy anise seed and use a mortar and pestal.)

For a richer version, we tested Aunt Mary's Panettone Cake from "At Home with Michael Chiarello" by Michael Chiarello (Chronicle, $40). This marvelous recipe was a richer version of the bread-machine recipe. It was denser like a banana bread or similar to a fruit cake and more of a dessert.

To create a tart twist on the panettone tradition, try Limoncello and Dried Cherry Panettone Bread Pudding, which incorporates the panettone as the primary ingredient. The recipe uses limoncello, another Italian ingredient from Southern Italy.

The lemon liqueur is made by soaking the peels of lemons in alcohol. Traditionally, the liqueur is served at the end of the meal, but the liqueur can be used to mix cocktails, desserts, and even entree recipes.

For the Limoncello and Dried Cherry Panettone Bread Pudding, use a 3-quart deep baking dish in order to use as much of the large panettone as possible. Also, whole milk should be used in the egg-cream mixture so the bread pudding sets up. When baked, let the bread pudding cool for 20 minutes before cutting for nice smooth pieces.

Although I drizzled white chocolate on the baked bread pudding, I think the limoncello-flavored fresh whipped cream makes a lighter flavor. Add 1/2 tablespoon limoncello to the half pint of whipped cream.

"Seriously Simple Holidays" by Diane Rossen Worthington features Panettone Breakfast Pudding with Eggnog Custard. Instead of flavoring the egg mixture with limoncello, eggnog seasoned with pumpkin-pie spice is used in the egg mixture in Worthington's recipe.

Cooks who are hesitant to buy a bottle of limoncello for just one recipe will be interested in the variety of recipes that use limoncello.

Cookbook author Lidia Matticchio Bastianich features Limoncello Tiramisu in "Lidia's Italy" (Knopf, $35). While the conventional version calls for espresso-soaked ladyfingers or imported Italian savoiardi, other flavors can be incorporated into the dessert. In this recipe, fresh lemons and limoncello liqueur lace the cream and soaking syrup. Often tiramisu is served as a family-style dessert in a large dish, but it can be presented in single servings in dessert glasses or wine goblets for a festive flair.

Among my favorite ways to use limoncello is grilled or baked Limoncello Chicken with Golden Raisins. In the summer, the recipe is great when grilled. On a very cool November evening, I opted to bake the dish. I wrapped the chicken breasts in a wonderfully lean prosciutto (pre-packaged) and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Served with the Limoncello Plumped Golden Raisins, it was a moist and delicious entree.

PANETTONE (Bread Machine)

1 cup milk

1 large egg

2 tablespoons butter or margarine, cut up

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup coarsely chopped dried or candied pineapple

1/3 cup chopped candied citron

3/4 teaspoon ground anise seed

2 teaspoons bread-machine yeast

Glaze (recipe follows)

For a 1-1/2-pound loaf, add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order suggested by manufacturer, adding the pineapple and citron with the flour. Use basic/white-bread cycle; light or medium normal color setting.

If after a few minutes of mixing, your machine seems to be straining, or if the dough appears too stiff or dry, add more milk in 1 teaspoon increments to achieve the proper consistency. If the dough seems too soft or slack, add additional all-purpose flour in 1 teaspoon increments until the proper consistency is reached.

Do not add more than 3 to 4 tablespoons (9 to 12 teaspoons) of liquid or flour. The machine cannot compensate for wide variations from the norm.

For glaze:

1 cup sifted icing sugar

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 to 3 teaspoons milk to make glaze of drizzling consistency.

-- Fleischmann's Yeast

AUNT MARY'S PANETTONE CAKE

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon finely ground sea salt, preferably gray salt

1 cup unsalted butter, plus more for buttering the loaf pans, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon anise seeds, lightly toasted

2 tablespoons dark rum

2 tablespoons brandy

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup chopped candied orange peel

1-1/2 cups walnut pieces, lightly toasted

1-1/4 cups golden raisins

1 tablespoon confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter two 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pans, dust with flour, and tap out excess.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set dry ingredients aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Stop, scrape down sides of bowl and add eggs. Mix on medium speed until mixture is pale yellow and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Stop and scrape down sides again.

Measure out 1 cup condensed milk. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add dry ingredients in 4 batches and the 1 cup milk in 3 batches, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Add anise seeds, rum, brandy and vanilla, and mix just until incorporated.

Add orange peel, walnuts and 1 cup of raisins and mix just until combined.

Using a rubber spatula, spread batter into prepared pans.

Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup raisins evenly over the tops. Brush about half (about 6 tablespoons) of the remaining milk over tops (save the rest for another use).

Bake cakes until they start to pull away from sides of the pans and skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1-1/4 hours, but start checking after 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool completely in pans on racks.

Turn the cooled cakes out of the pans, turn upright on serving plates and sift confectioner's sugar over tops.

Yield: 2 large loaves

-- "At Home with Michael Chiarello"

LIMONCELLO CHICKEN WITH GOLDEN RAISINS

4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup limoncello

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 to 3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

2 medium shallots, minced

6 to 8 very thin slices prosciutto

Chopped fresh rosemary

Limoncello Plumped Raisins

1/2 cup golden raisins

2/3 cup limoncello

2 lemon slices, about 1/4-inch thick with seeds removed

Rinse chicken and place in a gallon-size resealable bag. Add 1/2 cup limoncello, lemon juice, salt, red pepper flakes and shallots to bag. Seal bag and turn several times to mix ingredients; refrigerate overnight. Remove chicken from bag and discard marinade.

Wrap prosciutto around chicken breasts and secure with toothpicks (if necessary). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes. (Or grill over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, returning several times until chicken is cooked through and prosciutto is crispy.)

While chicken is cooking, stir together raisins, 2/3 cup limoncello and lemon slices in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until most of limoncello is absorbed by raisins, pressing the lemon slices with the back of a spoon to release juices. Spoon over chicken and sprinkle with rosemary.

Yield: 4 servings

-- California Raisin Marketing Board

LIMONCELLO AND DRIED CHERRY PANETTONE BREAD PUDDING

1 large panettone, two days old

2/3 cup dried cherries

4 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup limoncello

2-1/2 cups cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

For garnish: melted white chocolate or whipped cream flavored with limoncello

Break or cut panettone into chunks and place in large, round (3-quart) greased baking dish, layering the bread with dried cherries.

Beat together the eggs, sugar, milk, limoncello, cream and vanilla, and pour over panettone and cherries. Let stand 1 hour in refrigerator. Bake in preheated 325-350-degree oven for 60 minutes or until lightly browned and the tip of a knife inserted comes out clean. Serve with a drizzle of melted white chocolate and whipped cream flavored with a little limoncello.

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

-- "Caravella Limoncello" by Deb Fabricant

(Kathie Smith can be reached at food(at)theblade.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

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