PANPAPATO - ITALIAN CHRISTMAS CAKE

After a ski trip from which I will never recover and one Christmas party too many, I am very much looking forward to going home and stuffing my face with Christmas cakes of every origin and kind.

This one I’m sharing with you today (metaphorically sharing. Soz) is from Ferrara in the North of Italy. It’s called Panpapato (it’s the funniest name and it always takes me a good five minutes to spell it properly without adding extra pa’s in it. HA) and it’s full of nuts and yummy things and so rich and the most delicious. In fact, my dad posted a homemade one to me about a month ago because I couldn’t wait until Christmas. Miss impatient. Now I’m not saying this is better than my dad’s because my dad is the cake master but what you can do is make this one and then ask your dad to make another one and post it to you and you eat them both and happy days.

BOOZY MARZIPAN LOAF CAKE

If last week was coffee week, it really does look like the theme of this week that’s just passed is booze. Or maybe the four glasses of complimentary mulled wine I got given at the hairdresser’s today are making me talk nonsense. Either way, this is a very delicious moist almond-y marzipan-y loaf cake that is soaked in lovely spiced rum from a pretty bottle. Why not, “It’s Christmas” after all (?).

TREACLE TART

You spend the week drinking an average of 7.5 cups of coffee per day and you sleep 0.5 hours per night and have coffee cake for dinner and carry half your bathroom and wardrobe from home to arse-end of the universe and then to work and then to the centre and then back, then the weekend comes and you kind of hold right to the biggest slice of treacle tart you can possibly imagine with a mountain of vegan clotted cream on the side. Fill your tummy and smile and happy Monday.