Named an Exceptional Panettone in The New Yorker
A new Acetaia Leonardi creation. A buttery dome-shaped rich brioche bread Panettone that instead of having the usual candied fruit and nuts, is studded with Italian candied sour cherries and once baked, injected with a rich and succulent Balsamic Vinegar cream.
From Helen Rosner's New Yorker article on exceptional panettone:
Not too long ago, when I dropped by the Brooklyn culinary bookstore Archestratus (one of the only places in the city you can find a Biasetto this time of year), the owner, Paige Lipari, practically forced me to give this slightly unconventional panettone from Emilia-Romagna a try. It’s made by Acetaia Leonardi—which, as the name implies, is not a bakery but a balsamic-vinegar manufactory, in operation since 1871—and the yielding, buttery interior is shot through with a sultry ripple of balsamic crema. Maybe that’s what makes it noticeably denser than most other high-end panettone I’ve tried, with a slinky, melty chewiness that almost—but not quite—verges on the texture of cake. This isn’t salad-dressing vinegar; this is the sort of unctuous, viscous aged balsamic you drizzle on ice cream, fruity and dimensional. Leonardi makes two versions of panettone, one studded with raisins (more traditional) and another with preserved sour cherries. Lipari told me I’d prefer the cherry one, and she was right: the red fruit injects a note of sourness that coaxes out the sweet vinegar’s sharpness, a welcome pucker of intensity.