The "King" of traditional panettone 2020 is from Solofra

Out of 28 great Italian pastry chefs competing at "re Panettone 2020", Raffaele Vignola won gold for the traditional Milanese artisan Panettone, while Italo Vezzoli from Bergamo was the winner for the innovative category. Almost all the prizes of the Event which since 2008 has seen the best pastry chefs in Italy compete in Milan.

By now it is a recurring classic, the pastry chefs of the South always conquer the first positions when there is a competition on the best Italian panettone.

Re Panettone, the event that every year since 1998 in Milan judges the creations of the best Italian pastry chefs, asking them for a declaration in which they undertake to use only natural ingredients and carefully avoid additives and semi-finished products. was no exception.

raffaele vignola Avellino pastry shop — Raffaele Vignola in Solofra

The winner of the 2020 edition of Re Panettone is in fact Raffaele Vignola, from Caffè Vignola in Solofra in the province of Avellino, son of art, born in the pastry shop with a traditional panettone made second the classic Milanese recipe: dough with sourdough, flour, raisins and candied citrus fruits in suspension, butter, egg yolks, sugar; cross cut on top, no icing). Raffaele Vignola is not new to awards to King Panettone. In 2019 he received a mention for Made in Italy innovative leavened cake made with three different doughs. The previous year he had brought home two mentions, one for the panettone and another for the innovative leavened cake, which was Omaggio a Genova, a green panettone with Ligurian basil DOP

At the event, organized by Stanislao Porzio, 28 competing pastry chefs from 10 different regions took part. At the end of the sessions held behind closed doors, the jury assigned others two Mentions for the traditional artisan panettone category: a Alessandro Slama, bakery chef of Ischia Pane in Ischia (NA), young baker and pastry chef, who in 2019 had won the Panettone World Championship, held in Milan, and at Emanuele Comi, from the Comi pastry shop in Missaglia (LC) another child of art. which in 2016 had won another mention for panettone at Re Panettone.

Instead, the winner of the “Innovative leavened dessert” category is from Bergamo.

He obtained his degree for 2020 with a panettone without candied fruit and with grains on top, characterized by drops of lemon cream that give it an unmistakable aroma. Is called Italo Vezzoli, of Incroissanteria of Carobbio degli Angeli (BG), not new at the dawn of the chronicles. Vezzoli, owner of an original restaurant, where you can have breakfast to the midnight snack, also buying bread, had already won the Re Panettone Naples award in 2016 with this particular creation of his for innovative panettone and in 2018 he had won again in Milan the panettone prize.

We return to the South with the mention awarded to Annibale Memmolo, of the Memmolo pastry shop in Mirabella Eclano (AV) a perfectionist who has had excellent teachers, for his Pan Annurca; a panettone which in the dough, in addition to sourdough, flour, butter, etc. it has ricotta, almonds, cinnamon and annurca apple (noble variety from Campania), candied in the pastry shop.

The second mention for this category it went to a recurring name in all the annual rankings held in Italy on panettone, Massimo Ferrante, of the Ferrante pastry shop in Campomorone (GE) who presented Caribbean Black; it is a panettone covered with a chocolate glaze, which also contains chocolate inside, together with powdered coconut and candied pineapple. The most present ingredient on an aromatic level is rum

Ferrante, who arrived at Re Panettone Milan for the first time in 2017, immediately won the prize for the innovative leavened dessert with Albimokka, leavened with candied apricots, coffee powder mixed and toasted by himself, coffee liqueur infusion and white chocolate for the icing. In 2019 he won the Panettone World Cup in Lugano and this year he won the first prize of "Panettone without borders" for the "with difficulty" section in the sense that the participants had to present a panettone with unusual ingredients decided by the jury.