We are planning a holiday party, with an Italian food theme (but with Mexican touches.) Today, inspired by a post on the lonelyplanet.com Thorn Tree, Get Stuffed Branch, I decided to make panettone. Although I'm somewhat familiar with the process, it took hours and hours for the cakes to rise. Somewhere around 2 1/2 hours for the final rise. Together with the sponge stage and the dough fermentation, the total rising time was on the order of 7 hours.
This is a laborious process. We even made our own candied citrus peels.

I was vindicated in my faith. They turned out very nicely.