Panettone, 2010

Time for panettone again!  One of my favorite Christmas traditions; every year I try to see if I can improve it.  This year, I found a recipe on Epicurious; it's from Gourmet in December 2006 (here).  However, I only use the recipe as a general idea; I already have some of my own techniques that I use.  So here's the basic recipe as I followed it this year:

Fruit
  -1/4 cup Grand Marnier
  -1 cup candied fruit
  -1/2 cup golden raisins

Starter
  -3/4 cup warm milk
  -2 tsp yeast
  -1 1/2 cups flour

Dough
  -1 tsp yeast
  -3 eggs, room temperature
  -2/3 cup sugar
  -1 tsp salt
  -3 1/2 cups flour (give or take)
  -1 stick butter, cut into tablespoons
  -1/4 cup pecans, broken into pieces
  -1 egg, beaten

First macerate the fruit:  mix the Grand Marnier, candied fruit and raisins and let stand in a small bowl.

Next prepare the starter. Soften the yeast in the milk.  Mix the flour in until it is all well hydrated.  Cover with plastic wrap and let stand until at least double (1 hour) or as long as 12 hours.  Don't worry if it falls, all will be well.

Fruit and starter

Make the dough.  Strain the fruit and mix the Grand Marnier into the starter in the bowl of a mixer.  Add the yeast and let it hydrate.  Add the eggs, salt and sugar and start the mixer with the dough hook.  Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time and let the mixer incorporate it.  The dough will be quite stick and soft; don't be tempted to add too much flour.  Let mix on medium speed for about 5 minutes and then begin incorporating the butter one or two tablespoons at a time.  The dough will seem to fall apart, but keep mixing.  You can add more flour a tablespoon at a time to bring it all together.   Once the butter is incorporated, let it mix for another couple of minutes.  Then add the fruit mixture and pecans.  Continue mixing until it all comes together.  Shape into a ball and place in a large bowl, covered with plastic wrap to rise.

Finished dough

It was relatively cool in the house last night, so I let the dough rise for several hours, until it had well doubled.  Depending upon how warm, this could take anywhere from 2 - 6 hours.  For me it was about five last night.

From there, I shaped it:  I divided the dough in half and then make one big boule and four smaller ones.  The big one, I put in a paper panettone liner that I had bought from a bake shop.  (I used to just place it on a cookie sheet on parchment; this works fine if you don't have the paper.)  The smaller ones I placed in a set of large muffin tins that I had sprayed with non-stick spray.  (They rose so much I could have made them smaller and used all six muffin tins if I had wanted).   Then I covered them with a towel and let them rise again, another 3+ hours.

I got up around 5:30 and heated the oven to 375.  Once it was preheated, I cracked one egg, beat it and used it as a wash all over the tops of the by now well risen boules.  I placed them in the middle of the oven and let them go.  The smaller ones were done in about 30 minutes; you can tell by how brown they are on top.  (You can also use an instant read thermometer to check for an internal temperature of 180 - 190 degrees.)  The larger one took another 10 minutes.  Here are the final results:

Finished loaves

Yum!

I was very happy with the final results.  This proved to be a moist and relatively light bread.

Rebuilding My Montero Engine (continued)

10/31/10

10.   Remove the drive belts

AC belt is easy; loosen the tensioner and it comes right off.  Power steering belt is harder.  There is no tensioner and the driveshaft end is buried behind the AC pulley.  You can loosen the PS pump and move it, but I needed a second set of hands to turn the crankshaft pulley with a big socket wrench and rotate the belt off while I pushed the PS pump as close to the crankshaft as possible.

The alternator/fan belt is also easy.  The tensioner pulley (on top) loosens and then you crank it out to free the belt and take the belt off.

11.  Remove AC bracket.

The AC bracket holds the compressor in place.  Removing a few bolts allows you to take the compressor free of the bracket.  I didn't drain the AC system, so I just left the compressor connected and pushed it out of the way.  I see no reason to mess with it further; it seems like it should be easy to keep out of the way when removing the engine and then I'll just reconnect it when done.  The bracket is held on by several long bolts.  It was a bit difficult to get to a couple of them, but with a little effort I managed to remove them all and take the bracket off.  The tensioner is mounted directly on the bracket as well.  There is also a ground strap attached at the AC bracket, so it came off too.

Next I removed the fan pulley and the plate upon which it is mounted.  This is sort of odd shaped and held on by a bunch of different sized and length bolts; I hope I can remember what goes where when it's time to put it back on!  I did gather up the related bolts into plastic bags and mark them carefully (i.e. Power Steering, Fan Pulley and AC).

12.  Remove the alternator.  This is very simple at this point in time.  It's only held on by a couple of bolts/nuts and comes right off.

13.  Remove and drain the oil cooler radiator.  This isn't necessary strictly speaking.  But it occurred to me that it will still be holding some of the old oil.  So I removed it and let it drain for a while.  The only hard part is getting a wrench on the 23mm bolts that hold the lines on. But, having replaced the lines several years ago, I had a box-end wrench on hand, so it was easy to get it off.

Oil cooler, front and center

14.  Disconnect from the engine:

    * The oil cooler lines.  These are the other ends of the lines mentioned above (in 13).  They also have 23mm banjo bolts holding them on.

    * Ground strap, passenger side.

    * Heater core hoses.  These were hard, as usual.  But I was able to detach them from the firewall side if not the engine.  They'll just come out with the engine where I can remove them more easily.  I'll probably be replacing them in the end anyway.

    * Fuel lines.  The fuel pressure was relieved at the beginning, so these came right off.  Only a small amount of fuel was left to leak out.

At this point, the engine is completely disconnected from the vehicle with the following exceptions:

  1.  The engine mounts;

  2.  The transmission bell-housing to engine bolts;

  3.  The exhaust system

The first two will remain attached until I'm actually ready to pull the engine.  The exhaust system will be the next thing to detach, but this will take some work.  The exhaust manifolds are mounted to the exhaust pipes with 19mm bolts that require a socket deeper than anything I have.  And they are well buried between the engine, transmission, and other things and won't be easy to get at.  That will be my next major task.

Engine, disconnected