PANETTONE TRUFFLES

Panettone is a beloved Italian holiday classic, a lightly sweet briochetype yeast bread baked in a cylindrical shape. The dough is rich with candied citrus peel, and the loaf is usually decorated on top with whole skin-on almonds.

We found panettones ranging from just over a pound at Sprouts to 1-pound 10-ounce loaves at Alon’s. The recipe will use about half of that larger loaf.

We confess that unlike a good Italian grandmother, we used a food processor to turn our panettone into coarse crumbs, then added the milk, cream cheese and sugar and lightly pulsed again to yield a mixture that held together perfectly for forming into balls.

5 cups coarse panettone

crumbs

⅓ cup whole milk

1/4 cup mascarpone or cream cheese, room temperature 3 tablespoons powdered

sugar

1 1/4 cups dark chocolate

chips or chunks

In a large mixing bowl, crumble panettone. Add in milk, mascarpone or cream cheese and sugar and mix until well combined. Cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

When ready to form truffles, in a double boiler, melt chocolate and keep warm.

Remove mixture from refrigerator. Scoop out a tablespoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. Continue until all the mix is used. Using two forks, lower each ball into the melted chocolate to cover completely. Remove to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Garnish as desired while chocolate is still warm. Continue until all truffles are made. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Makes 29 truffles. Adapted from a recipe provided by Caterina Scarano.

Per truffle: 110 calories (percent of calories from fat, 41), 1 gram protein, 13 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 4 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 23 milligrams cholesterol, 30 milligrams sodium.

Panettone Truffles are made with crumbs of traditional Italian sweet bread, milk, cream cheese and sugar, then shaped and covered in chocolate.