Christmas Discoveries

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year! Ours was really nice albeit short. My Italian came home for the holidays (though he couldn't stay near as long as I'd have liked). But he did bring me lots of Italian deliciousness to enjoy while he was here. So instead of thinking about how much I miss him, I thought I would share with you some holiday joy and yumminess of the Italian kind.

Nowadays, most everyone has heard of the traditional Italian holiday cakes Pannetone and Pandoro. Pannetone is probably the most well known and comes from Milan. Pandoro is my favorite and comes from Verona, which is a beautiful town from my husband's region. That's not why it's my favorite though - I don't like raisins (pannetone has those) and I like to slather nutella on the pandoro. hehe If you haven't tried them they are very buttery cakes with kind of a coffee cake texture.

However, did you know that each cake has several variations to it? with lemoncello, with chocolate, with chestnuts, with english cream, etc. I am just learning that after all these years. So of course S. brought home several of these cakes, one of which I am now enamored of and am picturing here. ::sigh::
I give you "Il Budino".

Yes, that is a chocolate shell. And yes, those are liquidy tunnels of chocolate! It got a little banged up on the trip over but who cares? It is SO GOOD. Check out the site, to see all the varieties Bauli offers, it's in Italian but who needs English when looking at cake?!?

My next discovery is what I would call cookies but Italians call them pastries. They are my new favorite cookies and S. being the sweet man he is, let me eat them all. hehe They are called Ricciarelli. They are originally from Siena and made out of almonds. A delicately sweet and moist cookie that tastes like marzipan in cookie form. Oh. My. Gosh. they are good! And in researching a link to post here I found out they have different kinds! Click here to see the varieties. You know what this means don't you? I MUST TRY THEM ALL.

I'm not kidding, if you see these in the store or happen to be in Italy, grab them. You won't be disappointed. You need to eat them pretty quick though because they dry out and are not as scrumptious. I haven't seen any in "these here parts" but I will be placing an order with my Italian soon. I will also be stocking up on my next trip to Italy (coming this spring).

Well that's it for now. Since it is almost New Year's - BUON ANNO!

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

more later...