“Solo da Manduca” star of Italian artisanal panettone

In our selection of Masters of Italian artisanal Panettone, this year we have identified “Solo da Manduca” which has recently been confirmed as one of the 10 best in Italy, only by tasting it you can fully understand the reason for this result. The Panettoni “Solo da Manduca” are a long love story, without limits we could say, which sees as protagonists the sourdough, an almost obsessive selection of raw materials and a meticulous attention to detail.

A long story of a family of pastry chefs from Calabria who moved to Lazio in 1980, to Aprilia in the province of Latina. Sons Riccardo and Damiano follow in their father Vito’s footsteps, evolving and searching for new expressions of taste and creativity, but in particular Riccardo concentrates his energies on large leavened products, a world that he is particularly passionate about and that leads him to create extraordinary Panettone cakes with special features that make them unique.

One of his strong points is the mother yeast, which belongs to an ancient strain and is cared for all year round in order to arrive in splendid form at Christmas, when it is used for the dough that is leavened three times, a technique that confers great softness to the product. Not less important is the attention used for aromas and flavors, in fact vanilla berries from Madagascar are used, Norohy selection which is still pollinated by hand according to ancestral methods. After harvesting and selection the berries are refined in respect of tradition obtaining a high quality vanilla which contains sweet and floral aromas.