XMAS MAKES US ALL BETTER AND…SWEET-TOOTHED! HERE ALL THE DESSERTS YOU WON’T SAY NO TO

Every country has its traditions, it is true, but if there is something that unites everyone during Christmas time, they are the sweet temptations that boast our diets! Period of cheats and sweet concessions, we do not know how to pull back from enjoying the delights of Christmas that crowd our tables. Choosing our favourite traditional Xmas dish is always a struggle: panettone or pandoro team? Meat or fish? Or again, why not experimentation that fuses the cultures of different countries? In short, at Christmas, we are all better, maybe for the daily sugar’s intake that we give ourselves, but basically what’s wrong? We have no intention of giving it up and therefore here are the most iconic Christmas sweets from all over the world! Get ready to cook!

ITALY: TEAM PANDORO OR PANETTONE?

Panettone:

Panettone is a typical Milanese dessert, typical of the Christmas gastronomic tradition. Typically, it has a cylindrical base that ends in a dome shape. It is obtained from a leavened dough based on water, flour, butter, eggs to which are added candied fruit, orange and cedar peel and raisins. Over the years it has undergone many variations and, in addition to the traditional one, today there are chocolate, pistachio, orange, red fruits and many other kinds of panettone!

Pandoro:

Pandoro is a typical Veronese dessert consumed during Christmas. It is the most classic alternative to panettone: the dough is soft, with a golden colour and smells of vanilla. The shape is a trunk with star-shaped reliefs; the ingredients include flour, sugar, eggs, butter, cocoa butter and yeast.

PS: Try both with the typical mascarpone cream for a super delicious touch!

NORTHERN EUROPE: GINGERBREAD MAN COOKIES

Gingerbread cookies are typically in the shape of decorated men or stars, which we are used to seeing at Christmas time next to a cup of tea or hanging on the Christmas tree. Their recipe is traditional of Anglo-Saxon origin but now they have become a must for the Christmas period all over the world. Their dough is made of flour, butter, molasses, icing sugar, eggs, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg to which, once laid, is given the shape of a little man and decorated with royal icing obtained from egg whites, icing sugar and lemon juice.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE

As an alternative to gingerbread man cookies, the gingerbread house is made of biscuit dough, cut and cooked in an appropriate form to create buildings. Typical of the areas of Germany, of the Scandinavian peninsula and now of American adoption, it is usually made of a crunchy ginger biscuit known as pepparkakor, decorated with different varieties of candy and icing.

FRANCE: CROQUEMBOUCHE

The croquembouche is a typical French dessert created by the chef Marie-Antoine Carême, formed by a mountain of cream puffs. The puffs are prepared with choux pastry and can be filled with cream, custard or chantilly. To keep the mountain of puffs together, the warm caramel is used, which, cooling off from the croquembouche, as its name suggests “crunchy in the mouth”, gets an incredibly crunchy external consistency.

GERMANY: STOLLEN

Considered the ancient referee in the fight between Pandoro and Panettone, Stollen is a mouth-watering German Christmas cake. It is a sweet leavened dough particularly rich in butter and dried fruit, such as almonds and raisins, covered with icing sugar. To make it even more delicious it is filled in some of its variants of sweet ricotta and red fruits!