In Italy, there are many holidays where there are special types of desserts or foods that are only available or at least more popularly sold around those holiday times. For example, at Christmas there is a high demand for like panettone. Panettone is a type of sweet bread that can have raisins or chocolate in it depending on how it's made. The more traditional way is with raisins. It originated from Milan, but now can be enjoyed all over Italy around Christmas time. However, I realized when I got here that they are only sold around Christmas time and once they run out, they don't sell them anymore until the next Christmas.
Another time when special desserts come out is around Carnevale. When carnevale occurs, there are a variety of special sweets that are known for this time of year and most of them are fried. Frittelle are lumps of wheat or rice-based dough made puffy by frying that date back to the 16th century. Another type of fried sweet is known by three different names (depending on what region you're in); it's called frappe in Rome, cenci in other regions, and chiacchiere in Venice. Whatever they call them, they are all made the same. They are long strips of crunchy fried dough topped with powdered sugar. In other regions of Italy there are also more sweets for Carnevale. In Emilia, there are ravioli-shaped fried pastries filled with jam, chestnuts, pumpkin, candied fruits, and many other ingredients. Another pastry that is very tasty (I tried this one) is called castagnole in central Italy like Rome and sfinci in Sicily. They are small balls of fried dough covered in honey. They can also be stuffed with custard or chocolate on the inside.
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| Frappe |
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| Castagnole |
Another holiday that brings out special cakes and desserts or other types of food is Easter. Around Easter time you can find a variety of desserts like colomba and giant chocolate eggs! Colomba is a leavened bread shaped like a dove and covered with sugar and almond glaze. It may also be topped with slivers of almonds as well. There are a variety of different types of cakes in other regions of Italy as well. These include pastiera from Naples and cassata in Sicily. Pastiera from Naples is a cake filled with boiled wheat grains, ricotta, candied fruits, and flavored with orange flower water. Cassata from Sicily is the sweet ricotta cheesecake.
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| Colomba |
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| Pastiera |
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| Cassata |
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