KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 — Most bakers would probably keep a competition recipe under wraps when a place at the world stage is at stake. Ang Bo Ling is doing the opposite.
After nearly 100 batches of Classico panettone developed for the Panettone World Cup final in Milan this November, the baker-owner of Twenty-Two Bakery is inviting the public to taste his latest version... before the judges do.
Twenty-Two Bakery will hold a series of Panettone Tasting Sessions this October, giving customers the opportunity to try Ang’s Classico panettone before he takes it to Milan to compete against bakers from Italy, France, Switzerland and beyond.
It is a chance to see what almost a year of tweaking, testing and learning has produced since Ang won the Traditional Category at last year’s inaugural Asia Selection in Singapore.
(For an idea of how painstaking his preparation has been, the recipe that won Ang the Asia Selection took about 10 batches to develop; for Milan, he has made almost 10 times that.)
For Ang, the hundreds of hours spent refining the recipe have been about understanding what happens when even one ingredient or process is changed.
“With panettone, there are so many variables: flour, fermentation, hydration, butter, fruit, temperature and timing,” he says.
“So I approached this one parameter at a time, trying to understand the effect of each change before moving on.”
The result is a recipe developed around three objectives: adapting to the flour required for the Milan competition, extending the panettone’s shelf life and improving how its flavours come through when eaten.
There has been one major departure from the approach that helped Ang win in Singapore. For the final, competition sponsors require contestants to use designated brands for certain ingredients, including flour, butter, candied fruit and even the panettone cases.
That means Ang is now working with panettone flour from Italian mill Dallagiovanna, a world away from the ordinary bread flour he used for his winning Classico in Singapore.
“It has very different characteristics from the flour I was used to working with, and it took quite a lot of testing to understand how it behaves,” he says.
Ang’s willingness to work methodically has been a defining feature of his approach to baking.
His background in specialty coffee has also shaped how he thinks about flavour, taste and texture.
That philosophy carried over when he and his wife, Yee Teng, opened Twenty-Two Bakery in 2018. The bakery subsequently developed into a fully sourdough-based operation.
Panettone, however, presents a different challenge.
The Italian festive bread is not deeply rooted in Malaysian food culture, and Ang believes that unfamiliarity makes the tasting experience particularly important.
“Panettone isn’t really part of our food culture in Malaysia, so for many people, their first experience with it is an imported or commercially produced panettone,” he says.
Rather than simply presenting his Milan campaign as an individual achievement, Ang wants customers to understand what goes into making the bread and to have a chance to taste the result before the international judges do.
“I also wanted more people to be part of this journey. This is the first time a Malaysian baker from our bakery is taking panettone onto the world stage, and I felt it shouldn’t be a journey that only I experience.”
His Malaysian perspective is also something he sees as an asset rather than a handicap.
“Growing up in Malaysia has definitely shaped how I taste and what I look for in food. I tend to enjoy flavours that have a clear and immediate presence. Something you can recognise from the first bite.”
There is even a practical advantage to making panettone here. Malaysia’s relatively stable warm temperatures provide Ang with a consistent environment for R&D (research and development) and fermentation, an important consideration when working with natural sourdough.
Yet for all the technical demands of the competition, Ang reduces his ambition to something considerably simpler.
“And perhaps because I am learning this tradition from the outside, my goal is quite simple: the panettone has to taste good.”
That, ultimately, is what he wants visitors to discover at the tasting sessions.
“I’ll be there to guide everyone through the tasting and explain what we are looking at — the aroma, crumb, texture, flavour and how everything comes together.
“For me, the purpose of the tasting is not to teach people how to judge panettone. It is to let them experience what a panettone made at this level can actually be like.”
The Panettone Tasting Session will be held at Twenty-Two Bakery in Bandar Sri Damansara on October 10 at 11am, October 16 at 3pm and October 24 at 11am. Each session lasts one hour and costs RM25, with limited seats available.
The tasting includes two slices of the competition panettone, along with an introduction to the work behind it and an opportunity for participants to share their thoughts before Ang heads to Milan.
For a baker who has spent hundreds of hours baking and trying to understand every variable in his recipe, there is perhaps one final test that cannot be done alone: seeing what people actually think when they take that first bite.
Panettone Tasting Session
Register at https://twentytwobakery.com.my/panettone-tasting/
Dates & Time: 10th October 11am, 16th October 3pm, 24th October 11am
Duration: 1 hour (Limited seats per session)
Location: Twenty-Two Bakery (4-G, Jalan Ara SD 7/3B, Bandar Sri Damansara, KL)
Fee: RM25
Web: https://twentytwobakery.com.my/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/twenty2bakery_/
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