11 best panettones: Chocolate, vegan and orange Italian bakes for Christmas
The last few years has seen a true explosion in the popularity of panettone – the large bread-like cake hailing from northern Italy – which now easily outsell our own traditional Christmas puddings.
You can serve this versatile brioche for breakfast throughout the festive season, pair it with coffee or afternoon tea for an indulgent pick-me-up, or have it as a lighter alternative to Christmas pudding – so is it any wonder it’s popular? But its prevalence in supermarkets, delis and online retailers mean that there is now a phenomenal array of flavours, sizes, prices and choice and it can be hard to know how to pick a quality one.
Traditionally, panettone was made in Milanese bakeries to celebrate the arrival of the holiday season and should follow the authentic recipe and method of baking. A mother sourdough starter is carefully tended, the dough should be leavened several times over a three-day period before being baked, and it should contain orange peel and raisins to be true to the original.
This results in a soft, light, yet incredibly rich and tangy cake in a signature dome shape that symbolises luck and prosperity: many are then beautifully wrapped to give as gifts. Italians eat them alone or with sweet spreads and they pair brilliantly with coffee too.
Today, while the classic fruited style is still most popular, panettone is available in all sorts of weird and wonderful flavours. This year, black forest style or chocolate orange seem to be the biggest trends, so we’ve done our due diligence and tested them – and all the rest – out for you to ensure you get the most bake for your buck.
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How we tested
We tested dozens of panettone on over a dozen very willing testers, looking for a soft, buttery dough, an airy texture, ease of cutting, and focussing on how popular the flavour was. Happily, we can report that many of this year’s panettone producers fully understood the brief and have come up with some delicious desserts for this Christmas. From boozy Moscato and Limoncello spiked panettone to decadent chocolate custard-filled bakes and even a vegan version, there’s a panettone for everyone. Get the kettle on.
The best panettones for 2021 are:
Best overall – Moscato panettone galup: £18.90, Slerp.com
Best dessert style panettone – Muzzi black cherry and chocolate chip panettone: £14.99, Souschef.co.uk
Best for limoncello lovers – Carluccio’s panettone limoncello: £20.95, Carluccios.com
Best centrepiece – M&S triple chocolate panettone: £10, Ocado.com
Best citrus panettone – Daylesford organic orange butter panettone: £20, Daylesford.com
Best for breakfast – Crosta & Mollica apricot panettone hand wrapped: £11, Ocado.com
Best chocolate orange panettone - Morrisons the best chocolate orange and mascarpone cream panettone: £7, Morrisons.com
Best budget panettone – Aldi specially selected chocolate panettone: £3.69, Aldi.co.uk
Best classico – Macknade Panettone: £12, Macknade.com
Best for vegans – Mindful Bites chocolate & salted caramel veganattone: £14.99, Thevegankind.com
Best for classic and citrus flavour – Strazzanti panettone classico: £28, Strazzanti.co
Moscato panettone galup
Best: Overall
Rating: 10/10
This beautiful 1kg panettone from the Galup bakery in Piedmont swept the board for its twist on the classic; we thought it was faithful enough to the citrussy raisin original but special enough to keep up with the newfangled toppings and flavours.
Citrus is only present in this panettone as an essential oil enriching the dough, rather than chunks of glace fruit, which gives it a gentle flavour rather than an all-out zest party. The generous amount of raisins more than makes up for the citrus chunks – there are a lot – giving the panettone a luxurious, juicy texture against the fluffy, vanilla and honey-scented brioche dough. Finally, it is topped with a Piedmontese hazelnut icing, delicate sugar strands and whole almonds, giving a satisfying, sweet crunch.
We love this panettone – and it’s available in a whopping 5kg size if you do too (the biggest in the UK). If you’re in London, do head over to Eataly, the gigantic Italian deli court, which boasts 40 varieties of artisanal panettone and pandoro in store with a dizzying array of flavour combinations.
Buy now £18.90, eataly.slerp.com
Muzzi black cherry and chocolate chip panettone
Best: Dessert style panettone
Rating: 9/10
Antica Pasticceria Muzzi in Umbria has been known for its luxurious celebratory bakes since the 18th Century and while this particular panettone is bang up to date in flavour, it still uses the traditional sourdough recipe having been perfected over many years. Black cherry and chocolate is everywhere this year, and Muzzi pride themselves on keeping up with trends, so its no surprise that this prettily packaged panettone is a great success.
Soft, pliable dough is injected with a juicy, jammy black cherry filling and studded with dark chocolate, making up 500g of top quality panettone. This was a favourite with many of our testers, describing its cherry tartness and dark chocolate chips as utterly delicious without being overpowering, filling or sickly. We also appreciated that this panettone was easy to slice, thanks to the smattering of chocolate coating the dome, rather than a full layer of chocolate which is often messy.
Buy now £14.99, Souschef.co.uk
Carluccio’s panettone limoncello
Best: For limoncello lovers
Rating: 8/10
You can always trust Carluccio’s to come up with the Christmas goods, and its panettone selection is particularly good this year: think black cherry, prosecco and a hugely citrussy mandarin and dark chocolate iteration. Our particular favourite is this dreamy limoncello flavoured panettone, which is a marriage of Northern and Southern Italian tradition.
Weighing in at 950g, this soft and springy panettone is made all the better by being engorged with a creamy custard filling spiked with Sorrento limoncello – this one’s for adults only – zesty candied Sorrento lemon peel and drenched in white chocolate. It’s tricky to cut, but worth the effort. This panettone makes a lovely afternoon treat, a generous beautifully boxed gift, or could serve as a lighter Christmas centrepiece for anyone tired of heavier festive flavours.
Buy now £20.95, Carluccios.com
M&S triple chocolate panettone
Best: Centrepiece
Rating: 8/10
This panettone divided our testers. Those who enjoy the traditional sourdough tang and expect a rich, buttery and pullable panettone will be disappointed by this – the dough is very much on the bready side of things, rather than a rich cake. However, this is due to the fact it is impregnated with an impossibly tasty oozy and very rich chocolate sauce, which completely transforms the bake – if you get a bit – and makes it a surefire hit for cake lovers.
Kids and adults alike enjoyed the dark chocolate coating and its generous topping of blonde chocolate chips (blonde chocolate i.e. Caramac style seems to be the running theme for M&S’s festive treats this year) and it certainly looks fantastic. It’s ideal for serving with coffee in the run up to Christmas or for a pudding with custard.
Buy now £10.00, Ocado.com
Daylesford organic orange butter panettone
Best: Citrus panettone
Rating: 7/10
Organic farm, deli and eating emporium Daylesford can be trusted to select the finest Christmas fare, and its homemade Italian panettone is well worth a place on this list. Made using a mother yeast refreshed several times a day, as tradition dictates, and slowly leavened for that recognisable soft, light yet rich taste and texture, this 500g panettone is a three day affair and tastes fabulous for it.
A gently sweet flavour and very yellow dough – a sign of plenty of good eggs and butter – meant everyone enjoyed the perfectly traditional bake of this panettone. An unashamedly citrussy spiced flavour profile was evocative of hot, buttered hot cross buns, so it’s absolutely not one for you if you’re not a fan of zest, but we found the whole thing very festive and very moreish indeed. Perfect for tearing and even better toasted the next day, should it survive that long.
Buy now £20.00, Daylesford.com
Crosta & Mollica apricot panettone hand wrapped
Best: For breakfast
Rating: 7/10
Crosta & Mollica usually rate highly in our panettone testing each year, and once again we’re rather taken by its apricot variety. We don’t know why this flavour is so overlooked in panettone circles; its gentle, yet indulgent fruity sweetness makes for a deliciously different choice.
This light, traditionally-made cake was a resounding hit with all of our testers; the rich apricot and vanilla taste surprised kids, while traditionalists and sweet-toothed dessert fans were shocked at how much they enjoyed it and it had the benefit of winning over the citrus haters too. We like having this panettone for a decadent breakfast – it is really fabulous toasted and slathered with even more butter – but it makes for a sumptuous festive snack any time of day simply sliced – or even better, torn.
Buy now £11.00, Ocado.com
Morrisons the best chocolate orange and mascarpone cream panettone
Best: Chocolate orange panettone
Rating: 8/10
We tested a fair few chocolate orange varieties of panettone this year, and Morrisons managed to nail it with this chocolate orange and mascarpone cream version, which is a true bargain at £7 (and it serves eight).
Made at a second-generation family-run Piedmont bakery using a mother dough which has been nurtured since 1964, this panettone is old meets new done really well. The basic recipe stays true to the classic – complete with sultanas and candied peel – but takes the citrus flavour further by swirling a mascarpone and orange liqueur custard throughout the delicious dough and giving it a smattering of milk chocolate chunks to boot. Finally, it is topped with a luxurious layer of dark chocolate and scattered with toasted almond slices – it looks spectacular and very premium.
Our testers thought it was very pretty and really enjoyed the traditional flavour of the panettone, saying it was really juicy and the chocolate stopped it from being overly citrussy.
Buy now £7.00, Morrisons.com
Aldi specially selected chocolate panettone
Best: Budget panettone
Rating: 7/10
Chocolate panettone is so ubiquitous today you’d be excused for thinking it is traditional. We tried a lot of different chocolate versions in our testing, and this one was roundly thought to be the best. Baked in Italy using the traditional method, this sweet bread has the authentic golden colour and enriched dough you’d hope for, but is then further enriched by handfuls of large dark chocolate chips and a silky, lush dark chocolate cream.
We appreciated the distribution of the cream (lots of vertical stripes of it) which ensured that everyone got a bit of the good stuff, and that the domed top was left bare, meaning it was easy to dole out clean-cut slices of lovely chocolate-studded panettone. Everyone enjoyed this panettone, making it a reliable crowd-pleaser. Kids – who often shun dark chocolate – loved it too. This 750g serves 10, or you can pick up a mini 100g version if you’d prefer not to share.
Buy now £3.69, Aldi.co.uk
Macknade panettone
Best: Classico
Rating: 9/10
Macknade’s Italian heritage mean the brand knows what it’s looking for in a panettone, so this specially commissioned exclusive bake from the famous Vergani family bakery in Milan is exactly what we’d hoped to find. It’s a traditional fruited Panettone Milanese, made with a 70-year-old sourdough starter and using the authentic three-day method.
Our testers called this “the best classic fruited panettone” and praised its high fruit content and pillowy texture. Macknade call this the “original Christmas tear and share” and that’s exactly right; if you can walk past this sitting on the kitchen worktop without tearing a vanilla-scented, fluffy, buttery piece off you’re a better person than us.
Buy now £12.00, Macknade.com
Mindful Bites chocolate and salted caramel veganattone
Best: For vegans
Rating: 6/10
With the best free-range eggs and butter key ingredients of panettone, we were interested to try a plant-based alternative to see if those following a vegan diet could enjoy the joy of the signature Italian Christmas bake too. It turns out, this Mindful Bites creation might be just the ticket.
Following the same artisanal traditions whereby the sourdough starter is carefully tended and the dough leavened over a 72-hour period, this handmade “veganattone” shares the same delicious texture and indulgent flavour but without the dairy. While it is obvious there is no butter in the recipe, any lack of richness is remedied by the sweet, salted caramel syrup throughout, and the dark chocolate gives a feeling of further luxury.
It’s not the same as a dairy-enriched panettone, but it is a fairly impressive stand in. Choose the traditional vine fruited classico version if you’re not a flavouring fan.
Buy now £14.99, Thevegankind.com
Strazzanti panettone classico
Best: For classic and citrus flavour
Rating: 9/10
You may remember that our testers crowned the Macknade panettone (£12, Macknade.com) the best in the classico category; well this Strazzanti offering proved a stumbling block. Another classico panettone, this bake is from three sisters with Sicilian and Neapolitan heritage and embraces the bounty of festive Sicily, with tangy, zesty oranges and plump, sticky raisins packed into the soft yellow dough.
Our panel loved the aerated, fluffy, open texture of this panettone’s interior, and thought the buttery flavour second to none, but some found the citrus notes too strong. This panettone and the Macknade are very similar and both fabulous examples of the authentic original, so we’ll leave it up to you as to how orangey you enjoy your panettones. This comes prettily wrapped in paper and tied with matching ribbon, so gift it to an Italophile or tuck in all season yourself.
Buy now £28.00, Strazzanti.co
The verdict: Panettones
Eataly’s galup moscato panettone pipped the other panettones to the post on this occasion as we loved the sense of authentic tradition mixed with pure celebration and very tangible luxury. However, for pure classico panettone both the Macknade and Strazzanti bakes are pure perfection and we’d happily eat them on all twelve days of Christmas. And M&S and Muzzi have you covered if a pudding panettone is more your thing, with mouthwatering chocolate-heavy versions of the classic Italian bake.
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