Panetones

If you`ve read the entry on November, one thing missing is a description of our our youth council`s panetòn project. Friends Lenin and Nelly, students at the local state university, got the idea while giving me a tour of the campus of renting the agro-industrial center`s kitchen in order to make and sell panetones for Christmas as a fundraiser and service project. First of all, to describe a panetòn: it is a 1 kg cylindrical sweet bread loaf, with a hint of orange flavor and filled with raisins and candied fruit. Sold and eaten by the truckload from late November through New Years, the panetòn is immensely more popular than it`s northern cousin, the similar but heavier fruitcake. With origins in Italy, I have no idea how it became a Peruvian holiday staple, and neither do most people here -- they are just really surprised that we don`t eat panetòn in the US (I assure them that we more than make up for the calories with fudge and Christmas cookies). Anyway, Lenin and Nelly attended a three-day training course on making panetones (I accompanied them the first day) and did a ton of research on prices, products, etc and presented a plan for making 300 panetones in one day, using a popular pre-mix that would greatly simplify the shopping and measuring/adding of ingredients.

Originally nixed by the parish council for fear of not getting their loan of 2000 soles returned, Michi saved the day with a loan to finance the project. To summarize, I spent Thanksgiving Day with about 12 of our youth/young adult leaders, making 312 panetones that we easily sold for 10 soles each (3 soles = $1) -- and we could have sold double for 12 each (next year they plan to make more). Out of the 312 we saved 34 for a Christmas party for parish kids and our Christmas carol festival, more later on those events, with several hundred soles profit and a great group project. To top it off, the panetones turned out very well (maybe its an adaption process, but panetones tasted better to me in general this year than last, and ours was the best I`d tried).


What goes into 300 panetones? A lot: 750 egg yolks, 38 kg raisins, 38 kg candied fruit, 175 kg panetòn mix (flour, sugar, butter, flavorings, etc), water, yeast, elbow grease. I spent three days with a smaller group buying the ingredients, separating egg yolks, and -- most tediously -- sorting through the raisins to remove the overly-dry ones and the occasional stem. How nice that in the US raisins come cleaned already! Overall, a very positive experience for our group, gave us good PR (label read `Panetòn Francisco`), and some funds for future group efforts.