Christmas Baking – Making Italian Torrone

I am not a food blogger but I do like to bake. My mother baked almost every day for our family, and she taught me how to bake when I was 10. She was a good teacher and I have enjoyed it ever since. Thank you Mom!

I love the Christmas season and especially enjoy baking Christmas cookies. This year I made my usual biscotti, pizzelles, sugar cutout cookies, Italian snowball cookies, and a few others.

Thanks to a recipe shared from another Italy lover I met on social media, I also made Italian anise cookies. Thank you Tony Staffaroni.

I also tried making fudge for the first time and it turned out great. My granddaughters were very helpful helping in the kitchen and they love decorating the sugar cookies.

Baking together is something we do throughout the year and hey have become quite good at it too.

This year I decided to try to make the traditional Italian candy known as torrone. Available in Italian shops year round, torrone is a traditional Christmas favorite.

This sweet treat is a traditional Italian nougat candy made with honey, sugar, egg whites and toasted almonds. Making it was time-consuming, but not that difficult. It turned out fantastic…I was surprised at the color but it tasted good and the consistency was right.

After letting the torrone sit overnight the color lightened and the flavor was even better!

The recipe I followed was from this article on Swide.com.

I have become more adventurous when it comes to baking since I have taken several cooking classes in Italy over the past few years, and more recently one in NYC. It’s fun and with all the videos and cooking shows available making something for the first time is not so intimidating. I encourage anyone who is thinking about it to give it a try.

Do you like to bake? What do you bake for the holidays? I‘d love to know so please leave a comment.

Buon Natale!
Grazie and ciao.