The Best Panettone to Order Online

Best Overall

Biasetto Panettone

$60 at Amazon

Handmade in Padova, Italy, these panettone are about as traditional and delicious as any panettone can get. Pastry chef Luigi Biasetto even won an award for his panettone at the 2021 Artisti del Panettone competition in Milan. He makes each loaf from Italian flour, Piemontese butter, Tuscan acacia honey, Ugandan vanilla, homemade candied fruit, and his 90-year-old sourdough starter before putting the dough through a 36-hour rise. The result is super-soft, and very tall, bread with deep flavor that will help you understand why people love panettone.

Once the loaf is baked, Biasetto’s panettone quickly makes its way to your door with the loaves arriving in the United States in about a week. Since this is made so close to shipping, a loaf can stay fresh for up to two months if stored properly.

Flavor: Classic | Size: 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds | Allergens: Flour, eggs

Best Year-Round

Olivieri 1882 Classic Panettone

View on Goldbelly.com

Unlike many panettone makers, Nicola Olivieri and his team of bakers make panettone throughout the year. Olivieri 1882 has been making panettone since, well, 1882, with Nicola being the sixth generation to run the bakery. All of the bakery's loaves are produced with natural fermentation, and in the classic version, Nicola quadruples the amount of egg yolks usually in used a standard panettone recipe. We taste-tested a regular and a chocolate-chip loaf, and they both had a pillowy lightness with excellent distribution of the mix-ins. We especially loved the plumpness of the dried fruit in the classic version.

But what we really love about Olivieri 1882 is that they make other seasonal versions, plus a vegan panettone. "When beach season rolls around, we bake our Panettone Estivo, or Summer Panettone," says Nicola Olivieri, pastry chef and owner of Olivieri 1882. "This recipe calls for less egg yolks so it’s a bit lighter, and it’s packed with peach, apricot, pineapple, and strawberry that we candy by hand. Our customers love to bring panettone estivo to their barbecues or eat them at the seaside." We think the pumpkin panettone is far better than your regular pumpkin bread, and will be also picking up a pandoro this year.

Flavors: Regular; Triple Chocolate; Apricot Salted Caramel; Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Rhum Chocolate; Grappa Nardini; Gianduja Chocolate; Pistachio; Orange and Dark Chocolate; White Chocolate and Berries; Sour Cherry, Lemon and Pistachio; Pear and Chocolate; White Chocolate, Olive, and Rosemary; Apple, Raisin, and Cinnamon; Balsamic Vinegar; Pumpkin and Dark Chocolate; Peach, Amaretto, and Chocolate; Coffee and Chocolate | Sizes: 900 grams | Allergens: Wheat, egg, milk

Best Budget

Bauducco Panettone Original Specialty Cake

$13 at Amazon $13 at Walmart View on Instacart.com

Chances are, you’ve seen this bright yellow box before in stacks at your grocery store. But don’t think that its mass-market quality makes this a pass for panettone. Bauducco’s claims to make its panettone using the same treasured family recipe, complete with a 52-hour rise. You might be surprised to learn that this is made in Brazil. Carlo Bauducco was born in Turin, Italy, in 1906, and immigrated to São Paulo post-World War II. In 1952, he started his own panettone-making business using his family’s recipe, and the rest is history. The panettone is available in the fruit-studded regular version, a chocolate-chip version, a vanilla version, and mini panettoni.

Flavors: Regular, Chocolate Chip, Vanilla | Size: 750 grams/1.6 pounds | Allergens: Wheat, milk, soy, eggs

Best Chocolate

Settepani Chocolate Panettone

View on Goldbelly.com

If you’ve ever had a chocolate-chip panettone and thought, “This could use more chocolate, and/or some Nutella,” then this is the panettone for you. Made by Brooklyn-based bakery Settepani, these 2-pound loaves have melted dark chocolate and chocolate chips mixed into the dough, and then the finished bread is topped with delicious chocolate ganache and more chocolate chips. To make it even better, all of the chocolate is from renowned chocolate-maker Valrhona. The Italian-born chef behind Settepani, Nino Settepani, still uses the same starter as when he opened the bakery in 1992, so you know you’re getting panettone perfection. Settepani also makes a regular panettone and a Nutella version.

Flavors: Regular, Chocolate, Nutella | Size: 2 pounds | Allergens: Wheat, eggs

Best with Cherries

Tommaso Muzzi Cherries Panettone

$40 at Amazon

If you’ve ever been in an Italian-focused shop, you’ve no doubt seen the blue-and-white jars of Fabbri Amarena cherries. The Delft-like jars are packed with the wild cherries that are only grown in Bologna and Modena, and filled with syrup. For the holidays, Fabbri partners with Tommaso Muzzi, a pastry shop that was founded in Umbria in 1795, to make its cherry-laden panettone. It’s important to note that these loaves are a little denser than regular panettone, but they’re still delicious. If a whole kilogram sounds a bit much for you, Muzzi does make these in smaller loaves. And if you’re a huge fan of Fabbri, you can get the small loaf bundled with a jar each of cherries, strawberries, and ginger.

Flavors: Cherry | Sizes: 17.6 ounces, 35.2 ounces | Allergens: Eggs

Best Gluten-Free

Vergani Gluten-Free Panettone

$40 at Amazon

Vergani has been making picture-perfect panettone in its Milan shop since 1944, and its gluten-free version stands up to its flour-based loaves. To make this sans gluten, Vergani utilizes rice flour, rice starch, and potato starch in its well-balanced dough, and the loaves rise for a full 72 hours. While the finished loaf isn’t as tall as other panettoni, it’s still fluffy and soft, and filled to the brim with candied citrus. Or you can get it stuffed with chocolate chips.

Flavors: Regular, Chocolate | Size: 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds | Allergens: Wheat, eggs, milk

Best Splurge

From Roy Panettone

View on Amazon View on Thisisfromroy.com

Developing the right methods for your panettone takes years, and for renowned pastry chef Roy Shvartzapel, it took working under some of the world’s most famous chefs and studying panettone under pastry master Iginio Massari. A box of From Roy Panettone is an incredible treat that started with wild-fed mother yeast in San Francisco. Each 8-inch-tall loaf takes 40 hours to make, which allows that yeast to produce beautiful air pockets, and all the ingredients meld together into the most-nuanced and flavorful loaf.

Flavors: Orange Raisin, Chocolate, Pistachio Cherry, Pumpkin Maple Pecan | Sizes: 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds | Allergens: Wheat, egg, tree nuts

Best Pandoro

Tre Marie Italian Christmas Cake

$39 at Amazon

If you’ve ever wondered what the other comically tall Italian holiday bread is, you’re probably thinking of pandoro. This bread originated in Verona and is modeled after the surrounding mountains. Pandoro is known for its eight-pointed star shape, and the finished loaf is often dusted with powdered sugar. Inside is a richer, eggier dough than panettone, which I think is best when it’s without additional flavorings. This version from Italian bakery Tre Marie is made with 100 percent French butter from the Charentes-Poitou region, so it’s rich. Tre Marie does also have a slightly less pricey regular version.

Flavors: Regular | Sizes: 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds | Allergens: Wheat, egg, milk