It’s that time of the year, is it? Gosh, it soon comes round. Even if you haven’t had a single mince pie yet, it might be time to start planning, shopping, gathering ingredients.
Christmas breads are really cakes, of course, with panettone the king of them and Stollen (in my view) a close runner up. But I have also included some plain(ish) breads in my collection, because you might fancy something a little more savoury to go with your Christmas Stilton.
My twelve breads of Christmas are from all over the world: Italy aside, check out the Venezuelan pan de jamón as well as Scandinavian breads. From really easy to the ultimate challenge of traditional panettone - get ready to bake!
Starting with the easy one, a bread which is really a loaf cake. Cranberry and walnut bread – a cake baked in a loaf tin which you fancy spreading with butter – is the perfect thing for winter festivities, be it Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Cranberry and walnut bread
RECIPE
The French gingerbread is as delicious as it is easy to bake, and it can happily sit for a couple of weeks, gaining in depth of flavour and sticky texture. Make sure your épices, the spice mix, are fresh!
An unusual, savoury loaf, and what a gorgeous idea for this year’s Christmas breakfast! Monica Galetti’s Parmesan scone loaf is the nicest savoury option and it can be baked ahead, then toasted and buttered on Christmas morning.
Ethiopian milk and honey bread, yemarina yewotet dabo is a wonderful bread traditionally baked for Ethiopian festive occasions. It’s rich and spiced, but still savoury enough to be used for sandwiches. And it makes an amazingly lovely toast.
Dabo, Ethiopian honey bread
RECIPE
If you’re a novice at yeast baking but would like to try your hand, julekake, Norwegian Christmas bread is the recipe for you. It’s very forgiving, easy to mix and happy to rise. And it’s full of raisins and heady cardamom fragrance, like a lot of Scandinavian bakes.
Christmas bread from Provence, with a weird name (‘oil pump’) and delightful orange flavour, it’s traditionally one of thirteen desserts served in Provence on Christmas Eve. So it’s fitting that it should be one of my twelve breads of Christmas!
In Finland they make their Christmas bread with rye flour, buttermilk, aniseed flavours and treacle. It’s a little cumbersome to make as the dough is super sticky, but the outcome justifies the effort: it’s so delicious.
To Venezuela for a savoury Christmas bread recipe, or ‘ham bread’ as it’s called in Spanish. It might sound daunting because it’s made with laminated pastry, like Danish, but this is a rough and easy version of it - none the less tasty though.
My Christmas could not be without Stollen, and here’s an authentic German recipe for Stollen with two different fillings: one with a nutty swirl and the other packed with fruit and almonds. Both with a strand of homemade marzipan running through.
Pandoro is the Italian Christmas bread (cake) from Verona, baked in a star shaped tin and flavoured with citrus zest and vanilla. It’s so rich with butter and eggs that you will barely notice the lack of dried fruit, customary in its rival, panettone.
This is a showy one! Cinnamon twist star, with layers of cocoa, cinnamon and apple fillings, is a Christmas table showpiece but also tremendous fun to make. And actually easier to shape than you’d think.
Finally, the star of the show, panettone, which we love so much in the UK these days its sales exceed those of a Christmas pudding. In two versions: this one is baker’s yeast-leavened.
Panettone (yeast version)
RECIPE
The other, the real McCoy, made with sourdough aka lievito madre. Both require patience, care and some skill but what an achievement if it turns out well!
Traditional panettone (lievito madre)
RECIPE