Panettone vs Pandoro

First, let me explain that panettone is an Italian sweet bread with candied fruit and is so delicious. The texture is more like a brioche than a cake. It is not in any way related to the American fruitcake which also has candied fruit. 

Secondly, you need to know our long history with panettone. In the early years when we lived in Las Vegas, Ira worked for a clothing store called Brooks Brothers, which at that time was owned by an Italian. So at Christmas each employee received a panettone in a Brooks Brothers Collector's tin. Every holiday season we looked forward to receiving our panettone and would eat a slice every day and carefully re-wrap "the precious" until it was all gone.

When deciding what to bring with us to Italy, Ira picked his favorite four of the seven tins we owned. Coincidentally, our landlady had three of her own displayed in the kitchen. Imagine my excitement having moved to the country of panettone. They started selling them in the stores in early November!

I held off buying one until today. We decided to buy the smallest size since there were many brand names to try. Although we've been told that panettone comes from Milan and to have the best ones we need to try one from there. But in our experience, the most common of items we find in our local grocery store are better than the most common item in America. The choices are fewer, but the standard is higher. So at Conad we bought a mini pandoro and a mini panettone. 

Which brings us to the face off or taste test. I had heard of pandoro before, it's shaped like a star and just before you eat it you shake it in the bag with powdered sugar. To me it looked like it would be more like the consistency of sponge cake, but I couldn't have been more wrong. They are both sweet breads with a texture like brioche. The pandoro doesn't have candied fruit, but instead is covered in powdered sugar. 

I forgot to take a picture of the panettone unwrapped, in fact, I might have eaten it all before Ira reminded me we should have taken a photo, LOL. But here are some pictures of the pandoro in the bag with the sugar and the end result.

  

We each had a piece of a both and athough the pandoro was delicious and I wouldn't ever turn down a slice, the panettone is still my favorite. Ira's opinion was very judicious. He said that he already liked panettone in the U.S. and although this was a plain jane store bought brand, it was still better than anything he had had before. He likes them both, but he felt like pandoro he would eat more like a dessert, versus the panettone he would eat for breakfast or a snack.

A dopo!

P.S. On our walk today we poked our heads into the Piu Me store beside the Conad. We were excited to find it had a lot more choices for items you might find in an American drugstore, including lip balm! Yay!