Unexpected Instructions

As you go through life you gain experience in many areas, and eventually in may endeavors you feel confident, even complacent. But occasionally you run into something unexpected where you long since felt there was nothing new to learn.

For me, that just happened opening a panettone.

Panettone is not unknown in America, but it definitely still has "foreign" status. For example, some people describe it as an Italian Christmas fruitcake. Well, yes, it does have fruit in it, but it is really a sweet, light bread. That's the "pane" part of the name. If you expect cake you will think it is dry.

Our family can make a standard 1 kg panettone disappear in seconds, so it is a good thing we are living where every corner grocery has pallets of them.

Tonight we tried a variation on the theme, a "Gocce di Pandoro", this one with cioccolato fondente (dark chocolate). :)

Here is the box:




And here are the contents:




Wait a second! What's that packet? Powdered sugar! Why of course! You can't ship and store the pandoro with the pictured powdered sugar on the bread. And of course it would be unthinkable to eat it without the powdered sugar. Therefore, some assembly required.

So of course I started by taking the pandoro out of the bag:




But when I picked up the packet of powdered sugar I got my second surprise. There were instructions, and not only that but they were instructions that made much more sense than the mess I was about to make. You leave the pandoro in the bag, pour the powdered sugar over it, and then shake it up.

It worked perfectly!




Now back to what we already knew how to do.

Slice:




Serve:




And eat:




For those taking notes, a 1 kg pandoro with dark chocolate serves more people than a 1 kg panettone because the chocolate makes it much richer. Leftovers for breakfast!

Michael