Written by Agostina of Pane, burro e marmellata!.

In Italy, Christmas time begins in the first week of December, when you can see all the shops with a new look, the streets are more enlightens and, above all, the people have got a more happy and kind mind.

On the 8th of December, the Immaculate’s Day, we make the Presepe (crèche, in english) - that represent the night that Jesus born in Bethlehem - and then it can be a miniature with the Holy Family, an ox, a little donkey, the Angel, the Comet and the Magi or it can be also a big representation with a country of papier – mache or cork, a little lake with a fountain, the shepherds with their little sheeps, some typical characters (as, for example, fishermans, an old woman that spins the wool, musicians, angels, etc.) - and / or the Christmas Three.

All the month until the 6th January, there are poor people that go house to house, piping Christmas songs and ask for a charity.

Christmas is a great moment for all…

There is the fast on Christmas Eve that finish with the dinner, where is possible eat only fish, and with the Mass of Vigil that begin at Midnight, when Jesus came to life.
Christmas is a big Feast Day that we spend with our loved ones, eating all together (grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.). Everyone has their traditions, but there are many courses that you can see on the Italian Families tables at the Christmas feast, that’s to say: Tortellini- filled pasta cooked in broth, Lasagne, Cannelloni or other filled pasta, Roast, fruits, nuts, almond, pistachios. About dessert, we have the Panettone, a brioche dough with raisin and candy fruits, the Pandoro, brioche dough with a lot of butter, the Christmas Tronchetto- a chocolate trunk to eat, the Panforte, the Torta Calabria (recipe is in Italian), the Torrone, etc.

Photo of Pistacio Torrone courtesy of Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice
An other important day is the 31st of December. The last day of the year is celebrate with a special dinner (the Cenone) composed of Zampone with lentils (it’s for the good luck), tortellini or pasta, meat, chicken, cotechino, every kind of desserts and Spumante, the Italian sparkling wine to celebrate the New Year.

Christmas season finishes on 6th of January, Feast of Epiphany, when the Magi visits to Jesus. This is a great day for all the children, because arrives the Befana, an old woman on a broom with her broken shoes, that brings gifts for good children and coal for bad ones. There is Babbo Natale as well, the same of Santa Claus, that brings gift on Christmas night.

Photo of Christmas Tronchetto (Yule Log) courtesy of Lis from La Mia Cucina
Besides, The Italian Cuisine History is full of legends, above all, in the Christmas Time.
I would tell you the legends of Pandoro and Panettone: the two Traditional Italian Christmas cakes.

You can find them on the Italian tables for all the Christmas time (the most delicious feast that is!), but it’s from a little while that you can buy the Panettone during the year, too.

They are delicious with the icing sugar and their taste is so particular….gorgeous!

There are many legends about these two cakes…

The Panettone

The real history of the birth of the famous sweet Ambrosian, the Panettone, is wrapped in the thick of mysteries. However, other legends, it tells the origins and among them, the most accredited said, a grand Christmas dinner at "home" Sforza. The powerful lords Meneghini, satisfied at this dinner, where each course had exceeded the previous year to goodness, anxiously awaited the moment of the dessert. The cook, that was perfect until that moment, he realized, suddenly, that the oven had played a nasty joke!

Everything he cooked was burned! While desperate, was preparing to go into the room to apologize to the table, his assistant, called Toni, proposed him to introduce the sweet that he had prepared with the leftovers. The cook, that didn’t have choice, accepted and presented on the table that kind of bread, made by his skiwy. Soon, with great wonder of the cook, a chorus of cheers and congratulations, you got up from the hall. The cook was a very honest person and, although it was acclaimed by all, confessed that he went on to his assistant and his "Pan di Toni” (Toni’s Bread).

Another legend tells of a young falconer, Ughetto Atellana, desperately in love with a baker named Algisa, who had the furnace near the Church of Grace. The business is not going so well for the latter due to open another bakery nearby. Christmas was approaching, but the customers still away and to prefer the other store… then Ughetto, put his hands on the latest money, buy butter, sugar, eggs and raisins, mixed with the finest of all flour and ... the success was enormous ... .... power of love!

The long queue in front of the shop said that the fate of Algisa was overturned and, needless to say, the two lovers tied the knot and just ... .... to always lived happily ever after!

There is yet another legend, one that tells some of the sisters - we are in 1200 - who were living in humid and foggy countryside on the outskirts of Milan and living on charity. That the Milanese were not very lavish against religious and on the eve of Christmas in the cellar that had not been a little flour with which it was prepared bread. When the superior set about to bless, the bread is miraculously transformed into a wonderful Panettone. Given all the legends and what we suggest the name suggests, it can be deduced that the Panettone and not more than a bread, that’s to say, a natural raised pastry course. Of course, preparation and more complex than that of bread every day and the recipe is also enriched with butter, eggs, sugar, candies and other precious ingredients.

The Pandoro

About Pandoro, we don’t know if it is a legend or if it’s the true history, but all begins during the Renaissance. In this period, in Christmas wealthy families of the Venetian Republic ate a dessert called "Bread of gold": a bread with a buttery and golden pastry, due to the use of large numbers of eggs.

An other hypothesis linking the sweet at the Habsburg Empire, where the real home bakers were preparing a review of brioche French pastry called "Bread of Vienna."
The technique used since 700 is the basis of the one used today for the preparation of the pandoro.

The theory most credited binds buttery sweet at the veronese tradition that includes the preparation for the Christmas holidays, the Nadalin, a raised, soft sweet in a shape of star…in practice, the Pandoro ancestor. It’s highly probable that the reality is a mix of everything: the Austrian confectioners, employees in the best shops of Verona, have perfected the sweet tradition, improving it the rising.

In 1890 is recorded in Verona, the first recipe of Pandoro, from that moment became a symbol of this city.

They are beautiful legends, aren’t they?

About the recipes of these cakes, I can say you that are two long, very long process.

Photo of French Toast made from Pandoro courtesy of Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice
See below the Pandoro recipe!

The Pandoro recipe

From the book "Bread and sweet food" of Simili Sisters

Ingredients (then divided by the various stages):

450 gr bread flour
135 gr sugar
170 gr butter
4 eggs
18 g yeast
water
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick of vanilla or a sachet

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For the little raised pastry:

15 g yeast
60 g lukewarm water
50 g bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg yolk

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and mix together all other ingredients, fast. Cover and place in warm place for about an hour. After this period, the little raised pastry should be doubled.

First dough

200 g flour
3 g yeast
25 g sugar
30 g butter
2 teaspoons water
1 egg

Past an hour, dissolve the yeast in 2 teaspoons of water and join the previously little raised pastry prepared with all the other ingredients. Cut the 30 gr of butter into small pieces and add them to the dough. Continue to knead until the butter is fully incorporated and the dough becomes smooth. Place in warm place for 45 minutes.

Second dough

200 g flour
100 g sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
the seeds of a stick of vanilla
140 gr butter at room temperature to browse

Now resume the leavened dough and let the eggs, vanilla, salt, sugar and flour. Knead the dough for about 15 minutes, get a rise in warm place for 1 hour and a half and then go in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

After this time:

Take again the dough and put the softened butter (140 gr) in its center .

Closed the dough and roll up the dough in a strip that we are going to fall back on itself in 3 parts

At this point we pass in the fridge for twenty minutes and repeat this step two more times.

After the third rest, butter your hands and go to close the dough obtained in a ball, turning all the flaps of the dough on one side. Put the dough into the Pandoro mold previously buttered, leaving the smooth portion of dough on the bottom and smooth the edges with, about us.

Let rise in warm place for 4 ½ hours - 5 or more, until the dough does not overcome the edge of the mold

After this time, Bake at 170 degrees for 10 minutes and then at 160 degrees for 10 minutes. Take the test stick to see if it is cooked, leave it in the event until it comes out dry. Once cooked, remove from the mold form as soon as it becomes warm.