However, we love the traditional Christmas sweets, just because they are really specific to this festivity and so we make them in Puglia only once per year. And this has been the same since always.
Our favorite Christmas sweet is a fish made of almond. In many families and countries it is a tradition to eat fish at Christmas time. In Puglia we also have fish as a dessert!

This sweet is very simple to prepare. We make the dough with sugar, almond and chocolate. Then we stuff the fish with Marika’s pear jam, biscuits and liquor. We decorate the fish eye with a coffee bean.
However, as for many other almond sweets we prepare during our cooking classes in Puglia, the almonds we use are what make the difference.

The fish we made for our family’s Christmas lunch weighed 1 kg. We understood that everybody liked it since there was none left.

 
What a wonderful joy for me and Marika to wake up this morning!

We were so excited at the idea of preparing the traditional Easter breads with eggs for our big family lunch.

This was something our Nonna used to make when we were very little: instead of chocolate eggs we used to receive this bread, which was prepared only for this special holiday. We still remember the smell and feeling the warm bread in our hands!

Now it’s our turn…..and I and Marika love making Easter bread!

Boil the water and prepare 6 hard eggs. Let them cool down.
Mix the two flours together. While mixing, add the olive oil and orange juice. In a cup, dissolve the yeast in warm water and add the salt and a pinch of sugar. Add the yeast to the dough. Finally add the grated lemon zest. Keep kneading the dough for a while. Then separate the dough in 2 pieces, make the shape of two round baskets and place three hard eggs in the middle of each dough. Let them rise for at least two hours, in a warm environment.   Mix together the yolk with a tsp sugar and glaze it on top of each bread basket. Cook in a pre-heat oven for about 30 minutes at 180°C (350°F).