Pandoro

Star-shaped, golden, no fruit

Pandoro is panettone’s wealthier-looking cousin: a tall truncated eight-pointed star of pure golden bread, free of the candied peel and raisins that distinguish panettone. The name itself means “golden bread” (pan d’oro).

The 1894 patent

Verona pastry chef Domenico Melegatti filed a patent in 1894 for the distinctive star mold and the recipe — a leavened, butter-rich sweet bread with no fruit additions. The patent was effective enough that for decades pandoro was strongly associated with Verona, the way panettone is with Milan.

Eggs and butter, lots of both

A traditional pandoro recipe uses up to ten egg yolks per kilo of flour, plus 30%+ butter — far richer than panettone. The result is a cake-like crumb that pulls apart in long strings, deep yellow from the egg yolks and laminated through long fermentation.

Sugar-dust ritual

Commercial pandoros are sold with a small sachet of vanilla-scented icing sugar. The Italian tradition is to put the cake into a paper or plastic bag, pour the sugar in, shake to coat, then pull out the snow-white star to slice. Slicing is horizontal — across the star points — producing eight-pointed flat slices.