What I Got: Whole Foods Panettone Trio, Bauducco Classic Panettone, Bauducco Chocolate Chip Panettone, Bindi Limoncello Panettone

Price: $-$$

Review:

If you don’t know what panettone is, it is a traditional Italian Christmas bread.  It is sweet, and it can be found in a variety of flavors.  The classic version contains dried fruit.  Panettone is made with sourdough and is known to be incredibly difficult to make.  This makes me love it all the more because that makes it so special.  It has a beautifully flaky, airy texture that is like no other bread.  I enjoyed each of the panettones I tried although I will admit, I do have some favorites among them.  They are each subtly different and what is best is up to preference, so I hope my review can help you choose which one you may like the best.

Panettone is typically eaten for breakfast.  I like to lightly toast my panettone.  I cut a single serve panettone in half and put it in the toaster oven.  It toasts very easily, so I find I get the best results when I put my toaster oven at 280 degrees and toast it for 5 mins or less.

Whole Foods Panettone Trio – The Whole Foods Panettone Trio comes with three flavors of single serve panettones.  It comes with a classic panettone, a double chocolate panettone, and a limoncello panettone.  All three panettones were airy and flaky, as they should be.  The classic panettone contains sultanas (a type of dried grape that are slightly different from raisins) and candied orange peel.  The dried fruits were scattered in smaller pieces throughout the panettone and added a wonderful bright, sweet flavor.  Since the pieces were smaller, they were slightly chewy.  This added a nice texture to the bread.  The double chocolate panettone contains chocolate chips, and the bread itself is lightly chocolate flavored with cocoa powder.  The chocolate chips were incredibly soft and melty, even at room temperature.  I loved the subtle chocolate flavor in the bread because it was not overly rich but added some extra chocolatey goodness.  The double chocolate panettone was a delicious treat.  The limoncello panettone was my favorite. There was candied lemon peel mixed throughout the panettone and limoncello cream in the middle.  The bread itself was flavored with limoncello which gave it an incredible sweet, lemony, slightly liquor flavored taste.  The candied lemon peel adds extra lemon flavor and great texture.  The limoncello cream is the best part because it is gooey and adds an incredible sweet and tart limoncello flavor.  If you like limoncello or lemon flavored desserts like me, you will absolutely love this. 

Bauducco Classic Panettone – I have found Bauducco panettone to be the flakiest, airiest panettone of all.  The texture is truly incredible.  It includes raisins, orange, papaya, and citron.  I like the variety of fruit this panettone includes.  The candied fruits are in larger pieces and are incredibly soft.  The fruit adds a wonderful sweet, bright, exciting flavor, and I LOVE their soft texture.  The Bauducco panettone is my personal favorite classic panettone.

Bauducco Chocolate Chip Panettone – The Bauducco Chocolate Chip Panettone is equally as flaky and airy as their classic one.  The bread itself is not chocolate flavored.  The unflavored bread balances out the wonderfully creamy chocolate to create a delicious bite.

Bindi Limoncello Panettone – The Bindi Limoncello Panettone is the most dessert-like out of the panettones I tried.  I’ll admit, I ate it for breakfast anyway.  It only comes in a large 9 serving size.  It is flaky and airy but has slightly more of a moist, sponge-cake-like texture compared to the other panettones.  It has stripes of limoncello cream throughout and bits of candied lemon peel.  The limoncello cream is wonderfully tart, sweet, and gooey with real limoncello flavor.  It is not just in the center, so you get it in almost every bite.  The candied lemon peel brings more citrus flavor and a nice, slightly chewy texture.  This limoncello panettone is great if you want more than one serving or a more moist panettone.