The best Christmas Recipes that your sweet tooth will love

ITALIAN Panettone TRUFFLES

Ingredients

  • 1 panettone

  • 200g of 70% dark chocolate

  • 1/4 cup of Coconut Oil

  • Water

FOR THE TOPPINS

  • Walnuts

  • Coconut Flakes

  • Sugar sprinkles

Directions

  1. Cut the panettone into horizontal slices of about 2cm high and then cut the slices into cubes and place them in a mixer. Mix everything until you obtain many little panettone crumbs.

  2. Transfer everything into a bowl and start cutting the chocolate into pieces and then place them in a double boiler with the coconut oil. Let the chocolate melt at low heat and continue to stir until you obtain a smooth and creamy texture.

  3. Create some little balls / pralines using the panettone crumbs and then transfer them into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

  4. After 30 minutes, remove the panettone pralines from the fridge and dip each one of them in the chocolate and then roll them in the chopped walnuts. You can decorate your balls using mixed seeds, coconut flakes and sugar sprinkles.

  5. Once everything is ready, leave the panettone truffles in the fridge for 2 hours and then serve!


GINGER AND CINNAMON COOKIES

Ingredients

  • 100g of white or whole grain flour

  • 40g of brown sugar

  • 25g of water

  • 25g of Sunflower Oil

  • 1 tablespoon of Ground Cinnamon

  • 1 tablespoon of Ground Ginger

  • Sugar Glaze

DIRECTIONS

  1. Place the flour into a bowl, add the brown sugar, the ground cinnamon and the ginger and mix everything well.

  2. Gradually add the water and the sunflower oil.

  3. Once all of the ingredients are well-blended, transfer the mixture onto a table and knead everything by hand or with a mixer until you obtain a homogenous dough.

  4. With a star-shaped and a ginger bread man mold, create your biscuits and transfer them onto a baking pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15/20 minutes until they become golden.

  5. Allow the biscuits to cool down before tasting, and enjoy decorating them with some sugar glaze on top of each, to give them that final Christmas sparkle!


PANFORTE BITES

Ingredients

  • 200g of Almonds

  • 120g of Walnuts

  • 20g of Pine Nuts

  • 150g of sugar

  • 150g of Candied Fruit

  • 2 tablespoons of Honey

  • Nutmeg

  • Cinnamon Powder

  • Icing Sugar

DIRECTIONS

  1. Place the sugar and the honey into a saucepan at low heat and stir slowly for a few minutes.

  2. In the meantime, chop the walnuts, the pine nuts and the almonds and then transfer them into a bowl. Add the candied fruit, a pinch of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg and mix.

  3. Add the sugar and the honey mixture to the nuts mixture and mix everything together.

  4. Pour the mixture into a rectangular pan and bake the panforte in a preheated oven at 100 degrees for about 35/40 minutes.

  5. Remove the panforte from the oven and let it cool down for a couple of minutes, then sprinkle on top of it plenty of icing sugar.

  6. Cut the panforte into squares and serve to your dear ones!


Dark chocolate mousse

Ingredients for 4 people

  • 100g of Dark Chocolate

  • 2 tablespoons of Water

  • 2 tablespoons of Vanilla Sugar

  • 3 Fresh Eggs

  • Chocolate Flakes

  • Vanilla Ice-Cream (optional)

Directions

  1. Melt the dark chocolate in a double boiler at low heat. To do this, fill the bottom boiler with water and place the chopped chocolate in the top one over the water, allowing it to melt.

  2. Beat the eggs white with the sugar, using an electric mixer or a rotary beater until you obtain a foamy texture.

  3. Now whip the cream with the egg yolks and fold in the melted chocolate.

  4. Mix everything well and then leave the mousse to rest in the fridge for at least 5 hours.

  5. Decorate using chocolate flakes and add some vanilla ice-cream on top of your mousse if you want to add an extra delicious flavour!


Almond Tart

Ingredients

For THE shortcrust pastry

  • 200g of flour

  • 100g of sugar

  • 80g of butter

  • 1 Egg

  • 1 Yolk

  • 1 pinch of Salt

For the filling

  • 300g of peeled White Almonds

  • 300g of Sugar

  • 7 white Eggs

  • 2 Lemons

For the shortCRUST PASTRY

  1. Let the butter soften at room temperature so that it can be mixed more easily with the other ingredients.

  2. Mix the flour and the sugar and place them into a bowl. Add the butter, the whole egg and the yolk, a pinch of salt and mix everything using an electric whisk.

  3. Create a homogeneous dough and then wrap the dough in a transparent film and let it rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

  4. Remove the transparent film from the dough and lay it in a buttered round cake tin.

For the filling

  1. Blend the almonds, the lemon peel and the sugar.

  2. Whip the eggs white with a pinch of salt.

  3. Add the almonds, the lemon peel and the sugar mixture and stir everything gently from the bottom to the top.

  4. Pour the mixture into the shortcrust pastry and bake into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes.

  5. Once ready, let your almond tart cool down and sprinkle some almond flakes and icing sugar on top of it to make it more beautiful and even more exquisite!


Chestnut semifreddo PRALINES

Ingredients

  • 3 egg yolks

  • 1 Whole Egg

  • 80g of Sugar (option to use stevia or erythritol) or coconut oil

  • 1 tablespoon of Rum

  • 100g of Chestnut puree or Chestnut Jam

  • 250g of Cream

  • 1 pack of small Macaroons

  • 50g Dark Chocolate (optional for decoration)

Directions

  1. Use a double boiler and place into the top one: the eggs yolks, the whole egg, the sugar, the chestnut puree (or jam) and the rum.

  2. Let the mixture cool down for a couple of minutes and then add the cream.

  3. In the meantime, roughly chop the macaroons and place the crumbles into a baking pan.

  4. Pour the mixture into a bowl and create some small pralines with your hands. Once ready, place them on top of the baking pan covered with the macaroons crumbles.

  5. Place everything in the freezer for at least 3 hours.

  6. 30 minutes before removing the pralines from the freezer, cut the dark chocolate into chunks and place them into a double boiler at low heat. Slowly stir everything until you obtain a smooth cream.

  7. Once the semifreddo pralines are ready, dip them into the dark chocolate sauce and add some chopped hazelnuts on top each.

All recipes are provided by Cristina Iannizzotto (Food events manager)