{"id":8483,"date":"2026-04-21T04:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/8483\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:32:13","slug":"who-makes-the-best-panettone-ask-the-taiwanese-baker-who-conquered-the-italian-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/8483\/","title":{"rendered":"Who makes the best panettone? Ask the Taiwanese baker who conquered the Italian bread"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panettone is loved around the world and most often enjoyed during the Christmas period. The sweet, dome-shaped bread<\/a> has an airy, brioche-like texture and is usually filled with candied citrus fruits and raisins.<\/p>\n

But who makes the best panettone? While the bread originates from Milan, Italy, it was a team of Taiwanese bakers who claimed the world title in the 2025 Panettone World Championship. The team was led by Giovanna Chen Shih-chieh \u2013 crowned \u201cthe new panettone queen\u201d by the competition \u2013 who started as a self-taught baker.<\/p>\n

Chen credits the win to her teammates and attributes her own success to an unstructured childhood rather than a lifelong fascination with baking.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe team of Taiwanese bakers, led by Giovanna Chen Shih-chieh (second from right), celebrate after winning the 2025 Panettone World Championship in Milan, Italy, in October 2025. Photo: courtesy of Giovanna Chen<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth my parents worked,\u201d Chen recounts. \u201cI understood from a young age that they needed to earn money first for us to have a better life. While they didn\u2019t have a lot of time to spend with me, that meant I had a lot of free time and was by myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really have to thank my parents for never pushing me to perform academically<\/a>. They said: \u2018Being the best at school doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll have a better life, don\u2019t be the last but just be in the middle, then you\u2019ll be fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This lack of pressure allowed Chen the freedom to pursue her interests. While her friends shied away from school-related topics, Chen took a keen interest in English and pursued it as an extracurricular activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was very supportive of whatever interests I took up, so I went to English classes after school,\u201d the baker recalls. \u201cWhen I got to high school, I really wanted to put what I learned into practice and asked my parents to sign me up for a student exchange programme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panettone is loved around the world and most often enjoyed during the Christmas period. The sweet, dome-shaped bread…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1277,6212,6214,6208,6209,6210,6207,5,6206,175,6205,6211,311,450,6215,6213],"class_list":{"0":"post-8483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-bakery-masters","10":"tag-cast-alimenti","11":"tag-christmas","12":"tag-giovanna-chen-shih-chieh","13":"tag-himalayas","14":"tag-how-to-make-panettone","15":"tag-italy","16":"tag-making-panettone","17":"tag-milan","18":"tag-panettone","19":"tag-panettone-world-championship","20":"tag-paris","21":"tag-taiwan","22":"tag-taiwanese","23":"tag-wu-pao-chun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}