Colomba di Pasqua Recipe

How to make Colomba di Pasqua

1. In a large bowl, mix together your strong white flour and caster sugar. For a yeasted loaf, add your yeast, water and egg yolks and mix until they form a dough. For extra flavour, include the sourdough starter. For a full sourdough, leave out the yeast but include the sourdough starter. It helps if you have an electric mixer (page 35) because this dough needs working. Only a true martyr would knead by hand.
2. Knead your dough vigorously for 10–15 minutes, or until it feels smooth and almost silky. Only then, add the butter and beat until totally smooth and combined – at least another 5 minutes. At times it will feel gloopy, like it won’t come together. It will.
3. Give your dough a long prove – for a sourdough, this will be 6–8 hours at 24–26ºC. A prover, an oven with the light on or even a low oven is really required in the cold of Scotland. If you’re using yeast, it can still take a while: 3–4 hours at a cool room temperature. If it’s going faster than that, fridge it and leave it for 12 hours or so before continuing.
4. Once tripled in size, it’s time to add the stage 2 ingredients to your proven dough. Add the flour and sugar, then mix to combine into a new, drier dough. Add the vanilla, orange blossom, honey, salt and water, incorporating them into the dough. Finally, add the egg yolks, and again mix into a coherent dough. This will be a strange dough, both kneaded and not.
5. Then it’s time to knead again. And again, knead vigorously, for a good 10–15 minutes at least. Only then, start incorporating the remaining softened butter. Continue to work until this is totally smooth and incorporated, probably another 5 minutes. Finally, add the fruit (or chocolate) and peel. Keep working the dough until the fruit is as evenly distributed as it can be.
6. Lightly oil a work surface and turn your dough onto it. Using oiled hands and a dough scraper, slice your dough in half, if you like, for two doves. Each piece, you’ll want to split into three – one large piece and two small. The large you should shape as for a baton – this is the body of the dove. Each smaller one can be shaped for a boule and placed next to it for the wings. Repeat with your other dove, then sprinkle with your almonds.
7. Lie a piece of well-greased clingfilm over the top of the dough, then prove for about another 6–8 hours, preferably on the warm side. If it’s too cold, this can take 12 hours or more. You want the dough to swell considerably – to be at least two-thirds up. At this point, it’s ready to bake; 20 minutes before baking, preheat your oven to 200ºC fan (220ºC/gas 7). In an ideal world, you’d preheat even longer with a baking stone inside for maximum bottom heat.
8. Just before you bake, turn the oven down to 170ºC fan (190ºC/gas 5). Sprinkle over your sugar logs, if using, and bake for 50–60 minutes on the bottom shelf of the oven. If the loaves are becoming very dark after 30 minutes, turn the oven down. Steam can be useful here to maximize oven spring. Allow to cool slowly and do not even think about cutting into it until it’s completely cool.