Leftover Panettone Stuffing with Orange

A simple tasty way to use up leftover panettone (Italian Christmas Cake) is to use it in stuffing accompaniment for Sunday roast dinner. Big boxes of panettone are a common Christmas leftover in many homes. Those giant sweet dough cakes that look so pretty in their cardboard boxes, never seem to get opened before New Year’s Eve.

Fortunately a bought panettone keeps well into January. I was introduced to panettone by my Italian housemates Anastasia and Marco in the late 90s. Away from home, in a London less foodie than today, they were delighted to discover panettone on sale locally in the Hammersmith branch of Habitat. On chrome metal racks, displayed in a similar fashion to Harvey Nichol’s Food Hall or Carluccio’s, you could choose festive foodie items from overseas and especially Italy. Panforte from Siena in Marco’s native Tuscany, bright red tins of paper wrapped Amaretti biscuits. In many sizes, dangling from ribbon loops, you’d see panettone and pandoro cake. (Pandoro cake would work just as well here).

In those days, panettone looked so exotic and sophisticated. Yet they were inexpensive for their size. I bought one for every family member back home, none of whom had seen them before. Marco told me Italian families grill slices of panettone sprinkled with sugar for breakfast although we tended to eat it as it was or dunk it in trifles.

 

But today I’m thinking of using up panettone after New Year when many of us will have struck sweet treats from the menu.

My solution is a really easy recipe to use up panettone in stuffing for the Sunday roast.  If you’ve got any clementines still knocking about in the fruit bowl you can use those too or any oranges will do. Wash them before chopping the peel to remove any wax on the surface.

I love to pair sweet and savoury food at Christmas – as I recently mentioned in my bread sauce video, I serve my parsnips with dates and drizzle maple syrup over my carrots. So it seems very natural to use a bready cake in post Christmas stuffing recipe although I’d probably draw the line at chocolate panettone! If you’re feeling adventurous to make your own panettone see also my post “Easy panettone recipe that practically bakes itself“.

Slice leftover panettone cake into dice and toss in a bowl with some diced brown bread, onion, tiny diced orange peel and chopped parsley. Add two eggs and stir.

Bake in the oven at 190c / gas 5 for around twenty minutes until golden on top.

And serve – we had ours with roast potatoes and chicken. It was delicious.

 

If you like this post why not try:

My easy panettone recipe that practically bakes itself

Panettone French toast for panettone leftovers