ruthie, you're probably back by now, I hope you had a great trip. I've been doing "international" cookies too, LOL, but not because I decided to, just because that's what struck me. I just made cuccidati, a fig filled cookie that a friend sent me and I loved them. I've made Venetian rainbow cookies with almond paste, and I've made good old American toll house cookies and grandma's molasses cookies and peanut butter cookies. Elery and I are making cannoli tomorrow, and I've done the Scottish shortbread and the spritz and the pfefferneuse. I think I'm not going to do any more baking except cut out and frosted sugar cookies with the grandkids! Now, that pannetone. Here is a recipe from King Arthur Flour for a traditional pannetone, it requires an overnight resting of the "biga", which is just the yeast with a bit of water and some of the flour, kind of like a sourdough "starter". The bread is made using the biga the next day. I didn't have orange oil or the special seasoning thing you can only get from King Arthur Flour, LOL, so I used the vanilla and some orange extract. My family loves this recipe and since it uses dried fruit instead of the candied stuff, I like it too. I do not like candied fruit at all. Anyway, it's easier than it looks and the recipe came from King Arthur Flour: Overnight Panettone This traditional Italian holiday bread will stay fresh longer when it's made with an overnight starter. Biga (Overnight Starter) 3/4 cup (3 1/8 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1/16 teaspoon yeast (just a pinch) 1/3 cup (2 5/8 ounces) water Dough all of the biga (above) 2 1/4 cups (9 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1/4 cup (2 ounces) water 2 large eggs 1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) unsalted butter 1 1/4 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia flavoring OR 1 teaspoon vanilla + 1/8 teaspoon orange oil 2 1/4 teaspoons SAF Gold instant yeast OR 1 tablespoon instant yeast 1/3 cup (2 1/4 ounces) sugar 1/2 cup (3 ounces) golden raisins 1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) slivered dried apricots 1/2 cup (2 ounces) dried cranberries or flavored fruit bits 1/2 cup (2 1/2 ounces) dried pineapple, chopped 2 tablespoons orange or lemon zest The Biga: Combine the biga ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl, cover, and allow them to rest overnight (8 to 12 hours). Dough: Combine all of the dough ingredients except the fruit, and mix and knead them togetherby hand, mixer or bread machinetill you've made a soft, smooth dough. Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it's puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk). Gently deflate the dough, and knead in the fruits and zest. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a panettone pan or other straight-sided, tall 1 1/2- to 2-quart pan. Cover the pan and let the dough rise till it's just crested over the rim of the pan, about 1 hour. Bake the bread in a preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes; reduce the oven heat to 375°F and bake an additional 10 minutes; then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 25 minutes, tenting with aluminum foil if the crust appears to be browning too quickly. Remove the panettone from the oven and cool completely. This recipe reprinted from The Baking Sheet Newsletter, Vol. III, No. 2, December 1991 issue. Annie

lyfia - #1. Along with your new Zo, I'd also suggest a copy of the book, "Bread Machines For Dummies" by Glenna Vance and Tom Lacalamita. When I give bread machine classes I give this book to my students. It will give you a wealth of basic and advanced information, as well as being filled with lots of great recipes. I've never had a recipe fail out of this book. #2. Read the manual that comes with your machine and use some of the recipes in it. These recipes are designed for this bread machine and tend to be successful for newbies. #3. When converting your traditional recipes, you need to be careful how much flour there is in the recipe. The Zo V-20 and X-20 have a 5-cup flour capacity if you are going to bake in it. If you are mixing dough in it, you can use more flour than that. #4. ALWAYS check the condition of the dough during the first 5-minutes (or so) of kneading and adjust it accordingly. Don't be afraid to raise the lid and check the dough during the mixing/kneading stage. The dough should be formed into a very soft, sticky ball. If the dough is sticking to the sides or the bottom of the pan, you need to add more flour (1-2 T. at a time). If the dough is crumbly and not forming a ball, you need to add warm water. It is better to err on the side of a wet dough than a hard stiff dough. #5. If you choose to make a small 1# loaf of bread, I'd suggest you NOT bake it in the bread machine. The pan is designed to bake twice that amount and a 1# loaf is going to be really wide and not very high if baked in the machine. Choose 1.5 or 2 pound loaves if you bake in the machine. I generally make a 2#+ amount of dough and make it into two loaves. Or I'll make one loaf and use the remaining dough for 6 hot dog or 6 hamburger buns, 6 sticky pecan rolls, or an 8" pan of dinner rolls - all from one recipe of dough. #6. When baking outside the bread machine, I scale the dough (weigh it on a kitchen scale) to make sure I place it in the correct size bread pan, or if I need to divide the dough into two loaves they will weigh the same amount, raise and bake in the same amount of time. Failed bread recipes is often from using the wrong size pan for the amount of dough. I also scale the dough for dinner rolls, burger and hot dog buns so they are the same size and will raise and bake in the same amount of time. Jumbo size pan - 10x4-1/2" - 4-5 c. flour = 2+ pounds of dough Quick bread pan - 9x5" - 4 c. flour = 2# Standard bread pan - 8-1/2x4-1/2" - 3 c. flour - 1-1/2 # Medium pan - 7-1/2x3-1/3" - 2-1/2 c. flour = 1# Small pan - 5-3/4x3-3/4" - 1-1/2 c. flour = 8-ounces #7. If you use the quick cycle on your bread machine, you will need to use a fast-acting brand of yeast (SAF-Instant, Quick-Rise, Rapid Rise, or Bread Machine Yeast). Active Dry Yeast will not work properly in the quick cycle. I keep two kinds of yeast on hand to accommodate bread machine recipes - SAF-Instant and Active Dry Yeast. If I use the fast-acting SAF-Instant in a recipe that calls for Active Dry Yeast, I reduce it by 25%. The recipes in the ZO manual will call for one amount if using a fast-rising yeast, and another amount if using active dry yeast. Many bread machine cookbooks will have the different amounts for each type of yeast. #8. The bread machine is great for a baking marathon. I fill the pan and set the machine to "quick dough". As soon as the dough has finished kneading I remove the dough from the pan and place it in a dough-rising bucket. Load the pan with the next recipe and do the same thing. I can quickly make 3 or 4 recipes using this method. The trick is using the bread machine for mixing and kneading ONLY, but NOT for the rising. If you pre-measure everything, you can have a recipe kneaded every 20 to 25-minutes, or so. #9. Add "chunky" stuff (raisins, nuts, dry multi-grain cereal blends, etc.), at the "add-in" beep, otherwise the rough edges will cut the gluten strands of the dough and you'll have a short, squatty loaf. If you add raisins before the add-in beep, they will be pulverized during the kneading and blended into the bread. #10. Have fun!!! Bread is very forgiving, but also very humbling, so expect a few failures and a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of using a bread machine. -Grainlady

I bake in cast iron all the time. I don't have a Romertopf . My cast iron is a Le Creuset and also a very old plain cast iron pot . Both have lids. Both go into the oven at 500 for 30 min. and then I remove them and lower the bread into the preheated pot. I replace the cover, place them back in the oven and lower the oven to 460. Bake 15 min with lid on and 15 min with lid off. I will link pics below. To get your bread into the pot, either hot or cold , simply place a piece of parchment paper over the basket that the bread is rising in and let the bread come out onto the paper. Then I tear off the extra to make a shape with handles and simply lower into the pot. I have been doing this for years...way longer than Chad at the bakery that become famous for baking in cast iron :) Here are some pics. I will be glad to answer any questions. You can look on The Fresh Loaf and do a search for info on this type of baking as well as using your clay pot. I know there are folks on there that have done so. c bread dough rises in cloth lined baskets ( old napkins that are heavily floured with rice/white flour 1/2 and 1/2 combination) dough turned out onto parchment and parchment then torn to make handles dough lowered in to preheated 500 degree pots using the parchment finished loaf still in pot loaves cooling ...I usually bake 6 loaves...just keep placing pots back in oven and reheating with lids on and removing loaves from fridge where they have retarded...turning out onto parchment and lowering into hot pot

Hey there to you too Chase, and what a nice Christmas suprise to run into you here :) Thank you all so very much for your advice. I have never worked beside someone who baked bread from hand so I never know exactly how to knead and what the bread should look or feel like, which is why I did love my bread machine for when I wanted to make homemade bread - it tended to turn out pretty well out of the bread machine before baking. I'm sure I will love my kitchen Aid for bread too, when I get the hang of it, as much as I love it for everything else. I'm not much of a kitchen gadget person but I do love my Kitchen Aid machine. I have carefully read all the advice - I wouldnt' be surprised to find that I might overknead the bread with the dough hook and I also didn't proof the yeast, because the dough always doubled I figured it was ok? Will carefully follow all the advice - some of it I have never heard of before - when I do a trial run on the honey buttermilk dinner rolls today. Thank you so VERY much for all the advice! A merry Christmas to you all :)