Panettone the Italian version of the Fruit Cake?
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The cakes were baked and shipped months before they would be shared with family and friends at Christmas. Not as dense as the American version of a fruit cake, this Christmas cake has dried fruit and nuts mixed in.
Until I spent the weeks before Christmas in Italy I had never tried a FRESH panettone. It was moist with a rich taste and not many pieces of dried fruit. NOTHING like the panettone I found in New Jersey.
Olga Stinga from Sorrento shared with me how panettone are brought as a gift when you visit family or friends. And often the family will receive a large number of panettone. So when they in turn go out and visit they will ‘re-gift’ one. Re-gifting started in Italy. According to Maria, an English teacher in Salerno, Panettone is a Christmas fruit cake which arrives in the shops at the end of October. “The cake shops make their own with fresh ingredients and have a shorter sell by date as they use no preservatives.”
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Italy does have a ‘fruit cake’, panaforte. I am told it is a specialty of Siena and is denser than panatone. Il Mercato Italiano’s web site describes three versions of panaforete: “A flat, dense, round cake made with honey, hazelnuts, almonds, candied citron, citrus peel, cocoa, and spices. It contains a very small amount of flour, just enough to hold the cake together. After baking, panforte becomes firm and chewy”. (from http://www.ilmercatoitaliano.net/)
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Specialty Christmas cakes in Italy are works of art and are NOT inexpensive. While shopping for a thank you gift in Lecce, I purchased a panattone. The prices ranged from $20.00 to more than $50.00 and I am sure some of the gorgeously wrapped cakes were far more. Not your usual fruit cake.
Photos from google and the Italian Market site.