Panettone and Pandoro Festival

Wonder of wonders!  My expert stumbled on some great news right before December hit!  Panettone and Pandoro Festival was being held in Rome the weekend right after Thanksgiving and I had never tried either dolce.  It was also one of the many FREE THINSG TO DO IN ROME which made it even better!

I’d heard of panettone - a dessert bread filled with raisins and other candied fruits.  Pandoro was still a Roman mystery to me.  

The walk inside a conference center near Piazza di Spagna filled my nostrils with sweet, perfumed air. It was like walking into your favorite bakery at 5am when all their pastries were just taken out of the oven.

Once inside, you are overwhelmed with a table of a single HUGE loaf of panettone!  It was ginormous!  That's even bigger than enormous.

There lots of vendors each offering their own Christmas sweet.

Pandoro is the bread on the right.  It has no fruit in it and the sweet dough is soft, chewy and I got hints of light almond and even orange when eating it!

Samples were offered at nearly every table, making the free aspect of attending the event even sweeter.

If you look at this plastic-wrapped star-shaped loaf of pandoro, you'll notice the mold below it.  An even closer view reveals for 200 EURO, you can have both!  Not sure if that's a good deal or not.  But you can trust me when I say the bread was HUGE!

Many vendors offered more than just classic panettone with candied fruit and raisins in it.  This vendor offered varieties such as chocolate, limoncello, pistacchio and apricot!

This vendor decided to focus more on the bread's sidekick, citrus infused white chocolate.

Indeed, it turned out delicious with pandoro.

And then there were other sweets like this candied fruit bread.

Panettone does not usually have serious cake decorations like above.  You might see it lighlty iced and even more common is nothing on it.  But however you find it, give it a try!  Not a candied fruit or raisin lover?  Take a risk and try it anyway.  I usually dislike those in breads but now I'm convinced it is outstanding!

Stay tuned for the fascinating background on how these breads came about in tomorrow's episode.  Same VASGO time, same VASGO channel!