Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I usually make  stained glass  cookie windows for the cookie house at Christmas, but this year I didn't get round to making a cookie house (you can find a recipe  here  with step by step images if you like) so I made some cookies, just for fun! All you need to do is cut out the cookies with a central pattern and fill the hole with some crushed candy. The candy will melt while the cookies are baking, and harden as they cool.    Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena goes well with fruit, and there is also a Balsamic cream you can buy which is less expensive and ideal to decorate plates.   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Marzipan is the perfect sweet for the Holiday Season, and this is RAW, VEGAN and GLUTEN FREE, so it seems to cover most of the current food trends :-). Click  here  to see the recipe and step by step images (including how to use apricot kernels). Note that for colouring this time I didn't use berry juice but  Fresh As  raspberry powder, and also quite a bit of spiraling powder for a darker green hue. The nuts on top are optional, of course. I am entering this recipe for Sweet NZ #40, to enter your November Recipe  click here . Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

It is raining in Auckland today, but the bush looks happy and green, and the water tank is filling nicely (yes, we drink rain water!). It is also the last day of school for my daughter, holiday mood in the air, Xmas trees alight. The boy is already home, with a friend who is staying for a sleep over. They are playing with lego: domestic bliss for me! Yesterday I posted about making your own marzipan, and today I'll show you my little fruit. For the marzipan recipe click here , and for the colours I used some spirulina powder dissolved in hot water, and some juice from berries. Shape the fruit with your fingers, you can either colour the marzipan before, or you can paint it later using a small brush, or opt for a combination of the two for a stronger colour. For the stalks I used the smallest cloves that I could find, but this is because I made some miniature fruit! I like miniatures, in a past life I am sure that I belonged to a Jane Austen world where ladies painted miniatures a...

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel...

As a child I always had panforte for Christmas. It came in a packet, and my brother and I loved it: it was special. Then I moved to London, and panforte became an even more expensive luxury. Let's not talk of Japan and New Zealand! So about a decade ago I decided to make my own. It took me a while to get the taste I was looking for, and my original recipes, also published in my book Sweet As... is here . A made a few variations this year. In a recent comment Yari from Il cucchiaio di legno blog told me that industrial Vegan Panettone is not exactly 'nice'. I thought that it is hard to be a Vegetarian or a Vegan at Xmas. Panforte is almost Vegan.... it has honey in it. It may be interesting to know, for some of you, that in New Zealand there are some Vegans who eat honey, in fact they are bee-keepers. They say that they don't kill the bees when collecting honey, and that the insect are vital if we are to get fruit in this country. But NZ must be an exception, for all I...

Italian panettone is quite expensive in New Zealand, and pandoro too (a part from being difficult to find). But I always make sure that I get my hands on some. The other day I though of doing something 'adventurous': I bought some locally made panettone. Usually I am not one who criticize products on the blog: if I don't like something I just don't talk about it. But I cannot hold back here: I opened this panettone and I immediately knew that it was wrong. Those of you who know panettone will understand: you open a box and a wonderful fragrance fills the room, but here... nothing! No smell. And no taste. It was dry, boring, and reminded me of cardboard. Even my kids agreed (and they are no panettone experts, but they know the real thing when they smell it, and taste it!). I have to tell you another thing about me: I don't throw food away. For me it is a sin, the food must be really bad or gone off to end up in the rubbish. I thought my kids to clean their plates, th...

It may sounds strange for those who live on the other side of the world, but here Christmas means strawberries, cherries and red fruit! For this aperitif I used one punnet of strawberries, washed and cut, 500ml of natural apple juice, and one tsp of Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (ABTM) . The real ABTM is only sold in 100ml round bottles, like the one pictured below. Blend everything well and serve in small glasses. Great aperitif before an 'important' Christmas meal, and suitable for children too! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I made this cake for Christmas Eve, the base is frozen New Way puff pastry, which is vegetarian. I cut out four shapes (I was thinking of a Christmas tree), I brushed them with water and sprinkled them with caster sugar (to make sweet puff pastry). With a fork I made some incisions on the pastry so it would not puff up too much during baking. I had some pastry left over, so I mixed it with more caster sugar and cinnamon and rolled it out with the rolling pin and then folded it again a few times (like you do with puff pastry) until all the sugar was well mixed. Then I rolled it up and cut it into small circles, which I lightly pushed up using my finger. I thought that they could look like little pine cones... I baked everything at 180°C until golden (about 15-20 minutes). To make the filling I used Clément Faugier canned chestnut purée: one large can of unsweetened purée, and one small can of the sweet type ( crème de marrons), which has a hint of vanilla. I mixed the chestnu...