A traditional cake
during the year-end
holiday season

This cake appeared in Milan, northern Italy, around the 15th century, and the custom of consuming Panettone spread immediately all over the world. But how was panettone born? There are many legends around this traditional product. They are almost all love stories, and we shouldn't be surprised, since Milan, notwithstanding its aspect, its work oriented attitude, its traffic, and everything else, it has always been, and will always be one of the most romantic cities in the world. Here are some of these legends.

The first one is a love story: it is the XVth century, the Court of the Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza.

Ughetto, the hawk breeder of the Duke, loves the studying and the solitude. But he especially loves the beautiful daughter of the baker, Adalgisa. Their love, as it often happened back then, was opposed by Ughetto's family. So he could only meet the beautiful Adalgisa at night, when he could avoid her family surveillance. Moreover, Adalgisa at night was up too, because she had to attend to the bread making in her father bakery.
Unfortunately, a series of misfortunes happened to the baker all at once. He started losing many clients, another bakery opened up nearby, then the bakery boy fell ill and Adalgisa was forced to do all the heavy chores. Then Ughetto had an idea: he offered himself as the baker boy and thought to improve the bread adding some butter to the dough: there was no money to buy the butter?... no problem... The young man sold a couple of beautiful hawks and bought the butter he needed. It was an immediate success and it grew even more when Ughetto added some sugar to his recipe.
Some glutton found out and the word got around in the neighborhood. Ughetto, happy to see a smile again on his lover's lips, one night added some candied citron and eggs to part of the dough, which was ready for cooking. It was a very special bread and everybody liked it. At Christmas, the young man had another idea and added some raisins. It was a huge success. Naturally at this point Ughetto and Adalgisa's dream came true and they could get married.
Their secret soon became common knowledge; soon enough in every block bakers made big shapes and big quantities of the sweet bread with raisins.

A very similar story, but without the romantic part, says that the invention of the sweet bread wasn't the work of messer Ughetto, but of sister Ughetta that, in order to please the other nuns, invented a very successful sweet bread for Christmas.

Sister Ughetta lived in a poor convent with other young nuns: the upcoming Christmas was going to be sad and miserable. But all of a sudden the situation changed when Suora Ughetta came up with this new cake on which she had traced with a knife a cross on the crust of the cake. When the cupola-shaped crust was cooked and golden, the groove left by the knife opened up, creating those bumbs that are still visible today in the traditional panettoni, still  manufactured today according to old recipes.