Quality, constant attention to ingredients and faithfulness to the traditional recipe.
That’s how Maina’s excellence is made.

Panettone

Natural raw ingredients

Wheat flour, fresh egg yolks, butter, sugar. Then, fresh pasteurized whole milk, many scented candied orange and citron peels and sweet sultanas.
All genuine ingredients, coming from carefully selected suppliers with whom Maina has a long-standing relationship of trust.

Mother Yeast

The true secret is to start off on the right track, only using natural sour yeast day after day. This is the so-called “Mother Yeast”, a living product capable of multiplying; it demands skill and constant attention. This is what gives Panettone softness and its typical porous texture, its shape and taste.
Every morning, skilled hands revive it with flour and water; then, when its initial fermentation is complete, a small portion of it is set aside, to be used the next day to make more of it. The process has always been the same, with the same “mother yeast” from 1964, the year the Company was founded, used over and over again. A continued tradition that renews itself in the slow baking and cooling process, as was the custom in the old artisan baker’s shops.

The dough

24 hours of leavening. The Mother Yeast swells up and triples in volume. A fully automated baking process begins to ensure consistent quality and the highest level of hygiene.
The initial dough is followed by the so-called “white” or evening dough, rather elastic (with flour, sugar, butter and egg yolks) and, 12 hours later, the “morning” one, enriched with the same ingredients added for taste, and, finally, the candied fruits and raisins.
A gradual process, a nicely spaced alternation of kneading and resting times, three in all, to obtain the perfect blend, a pleasing harmony.
The dough, made softer by the yeast, duly sliced and turned upside down several times through a mechanical process, firms into its rounded shape: it's the “bolo” or ball, as pastry-makers refer to it in their slang, smooth and uniform. Gently placed into the paper mould, it is ready for the final leavening, ten hours or so at 30°C and high humidity.

Marked with a cross

Before it enters the oven, a cross is marked on Panettone’s upper dome: it's the traditional “scarpatura” a process that allows a uniform leavening and the dough to puff up well over the rim of the mould. An archaic ritual, a custom that readily lends itself to a strong religious connotation, as though to confirm the timeless sacredness of bread.
The famous low-baked Piedmont Panettone, the renowned “Gran Nocciolato,” is covered instead with a crispy glaze of precious hazelnuts, crushed fine and added to sugar and egg white. The slow process is yet another trademark: in fact, the frosting must rest for at least eight hours.
Then all that's left is to bake it: one hour in the oven at about 160°C.

Upside-down

Once it comes out of the oven, Panettone is turned upside-down and left to cool in this position for roughly 8 hours at room temperature, in order to maintain its classical dome shape and to preserve its organoleptic characteristics and accentuate its flavours.

Packaged and sealed in a bag, after about 60 hours from the beginning of the yeast’s preparation, Panettone moves on to its final boxing.

Pandoro

Cone-shaped, tall and elongated, an especially fragrant and very soft dough, thanks to the natural, slow leavening process. An eight-pointed star, a delicacy made with flour, sugar, fresh eggs, butter and vanilla flavouring. This is the official “ID” of the Pandoro.

Its distinctive trait is still its golden-yellow colour, due now to the abundance of eggs and butter. A manufacturing cycle that begins with the preparation of the Mother Yeast, the same used for panettone, according to guidelines for quality and genuineness established by Maina. Then, in the kneading phases that follow, another type of natural yeast is also added, the one commonly known as beer yeast. The process is different: the raw ingredients are added, depending on their kind, at different times, alternating each ingredient added with the kneading and resting phases. Then the dough is placed in the star-shaped aluminium moulds, to start the long process: leavening, oven baking, cooling.

A process slow in the making, in small steps, and about 50 hours after its initial preparation, Pandoro appears in all its splendour of taste and aroma and is ready for its final boxing.

Colomba

A symbol of peace and brotherhood whose message is universal was the obvious choice for the classic cake for Easter: Colomba (Italian word for “dove”).

Prepared and baked according to a process similar in many ways to that of Panettone, very slow and with only natural ingredients, the difference being the lack of raisins and citrus in the dough. But the pastry maker's hand is generous in adding candied orange, soft and fragrant.

Stylized and flattened out in its shape, Colomba reigns over the table at Easter with its crunchy frosting, the fruit even today undergoing an artisanal process of pounding raw hezelnuts with granulated sugar, fresh egg white and rice flour. It's the ancient “ice glaze” of pastry chefs, refined with almonds and sugar crystals.
Absolutely no additives, Maina-certified quality.