Panettone French Toast with Cranberry Compote
Classic Italian Panettone bread is transformed into delicious and festive French toast for the holiday season! Serve with tart cranberry compote.
Christmas Day is packed with small traditions in our family. Most revolve around food, specifically Italian Panettone.
After slowly waking up, my family sits down at the table to feast on Italian panettone, fresh fruit and berries, and warm mugs of hot coffee. Pajamas, robes, and fuzzy socks are the official uniform of the day.
After eating breakfast, we head to the living room where we grab our stockings and slowly open presents one at a time. Some traditions have changed over the years, but this one has stuck.
Panettone is a holiday staple for our family. Some people go crazy for Christmas cookies, we love a nice, thick slice of buttery Italian panettone. It tastes like the holidays.
While I have yet to try my hand at homemade panettone, we have tried and test so many panettones over the years. Usually I’m a proponent of enjoying it as is, preferably with a slather of salted butter. A good panettone doesn’t need much more than that.
For this Buttermilk Panettone French Toast, I’d be willing to make an exception. To up the ante, we’re serving it up homemade cranberry compote.
How to Make Panettone French Toast:
If you’ve ever made challah or brioche french toast, you know that enriched yeast breads make the best and most decadent French toast.
Now imagine using panettone which has the added bonus of being filled with candied orange, raisins, citron, and zest.
Instead of soaking bread in a traditional mixture of milk, eggs, and spices, this Panettone French toast is soaked in a buttermilk mixture infused with fresh orange zest and vanilla extract. It is spectacular! The buttermilk adds a subtle tartness that helps balance the sweetness of this dish.
The French toast is paired with a very simple cranberry compote. It pairs so nicely with the citrus-filled panettone and helps make this decadent holiday breakfast a bit more special and unique.
If you’re looking for a festive Christmas breakfast recipe, this is it!
Panettone French Toast with Cranberry Compote
Ingredients
Cranberry Compote (Makes ~1 Cup):
- 8 ounces fresh cranberries
- ⅔ cup packed dark brown sugar
- 2 thick strips orange peel
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ⅓ cup water
- pinch kosher salt
Buttermilk Panettone French Toast:
- 1¾ cups buttermilk
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
- 1 loaf Italian Panettone ideally several days old or stale
- unsalted butter for cooking
- warm maple syrup for serving
- powdered sugar for garnishing (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare the Cranberry Compote: Combine all of the ingredients in a medium saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to a low boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook until the cranberries have burst and the mixture has thickened. Set aside to cool. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.
- Prepare the French Toast: In a large, shallow bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, and orange zest. Set aside.
- Remove the panettone (ideally several days old or slightly stale) from the paper baking wrapper. Using a bread knife, slice the loaf horizontally into 1 to 1¼-inch thick round slices. Slice each round into half moons.
- Heat a tab of butter in a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat until small bubbles begin to form. Right before cooking, dip the panettone slices in the buttermilk-egg mixture, turning them until they just become saturated (note: if your Panettone is very fresh, do this step extremely quickly, as the bread is delicate and can become mushy quickly). Allow any excess egg-buttermilk mixture to drip off and place in the hot buttered pan. Cook in batches to avoid over-crowding the pan. Cook the french toast until golden brown on each side, flipping carefully with a wide heatproof spatula.
- Top the hot Panettone French toast with a spoonful of cranberry compote and serve with warm maple syrup. Garnish with powdered sugar, if desired.
20 Comments on “Panettone French Toast with Cranberry Compote”
Note to self – stop at Agata and Valentina on my way home from work today! I can’t think of a more festive Christmas breakfast.
Yes! I forgot you lived so close to there too!
Laura…this looks sooo amazing! I love Panettone French toast 🙂 Look absolutely divine!
So glad you like it!!! I don’t know why its taken me this long to make French toast with Panettone, it’s been on my agenda every year for a long time!
This sounds so amazing! Pinning!
YUMSIES. I could do some damage to this. 🙂
That is one sassy looking Panettone. I adore it!
The panettone was working it! 😉
Never had Panettone, but now I really want to. The problem is where to find that fancy bread in my small town! Oh well, I will just make peace by using regular bread with your delicious cranberry compote!
Do you have any Italian stores, or Trader Joe’s nearby? If not, you may be able to order some online very easily now! This would be great with challah or French toast though, I would just add a bit more orange zest and perhaps a bit of cinnamon to the batter to up the flavor (since the bread will no longer have as much flavor). Hope this helps!
Oh man…this looks dangerously delicious!! The ensuing food coma may force my family to postpone gift opening until afternoon, but it’ll be so worth it 🙂
Christmas morning breakfast, done and done!
P.S. – I love how you slowly open your stockings…me too 🙂 hehe
We literally go around in a circle and only one person can open a present at a time! HA! I’ve been doing that since I was a little kid (I lack patience in every other situation). 🙂
This looks wonderful and I want to try it! Did Pippa tell you that we have upped the ante even more this year, or rather she has! Yes, that fancy panettone,, that she mentioned that we had a few years ago and definitely not worth the money, was made with ” mountain churned” butter, no sea level butter for us! Makes all the difference!
Okay, just wiping away all the drool–seriously this looks SO amazing! I love Christmas morning (and hearing about everyone’s food traditions). We make homemade fried donuts and stuff them with everything from Nutella to peanut butter to jam. This French toast looks unbelievably good–we might have to add that to the mix!
I love the idea of buttermilk in French toast. This looks delicious!
This looks like a great Christmas morning breakfast idea! Yummy!
I have never had Panettone, but this has me thinking I need to get some! Funny thing is I just mad french toast and was SO CLOSE to making Cranberry Compote, but them didn’t becauseI did not want it to be TOO much with my recipe. It fits so perfect with this though. YUM!
Wow, what a great idea for Christmas morning brunch! I’ve only had panettone once before, butt his looks like a great idea for serving it 🙂
You forgot to tell your readers about the time that I bought the panettone made from 100 year-old yeast, or whatever that was. Oh, and now that you have made this for the blog Alessandra is going to be bugging you to make it at home!