Hello, dears! Are you feeling festive? Not just yet, but my motto is... Never too early for yummy treats! I love all kinds of aromatic sweets. Especially if you get to bake them, that moment when the kitchen floods with the aromas of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg... It's just magical. I will bake some traditional Greek sweets called melomakarona when I visit Greece. Along with another treat, kourabies, it is a traditional dessert prepared primarily during the Christmas holiday season and it is absolutely fantastic. Syrupy, moist, rich in body and flavour and with the aromas of cinnamon and nutmeg combined with orange zest and cognac... Simply majestic!
Having to pick from all kinds of indulgent sweet treats making their appearance early in the season, some mouth-watering Lebkuchen *happened* to come my way. I couldn't resist - can you blame me? I was defenseless. I opened the box and it smelled like Christmas. So I made a cup of tea and sat down to get lost in their rich aroma.
Lebkuchen, or Pfefferkuchen (literally pepper cake!), is a traditional German baked Christmas treat, similar to gingerbread. However, it is softer and fuller, crumbly and just spicy enough to get your palate tingling. These were dark chocolate covered, perfectly matching the intensity of the flavour. Lebkuchen is so popular that you can find it sold at fairs and Christmas markets in the shape of heart. It can be given as a present in order to show gratitude.
So, since Christmas means chocolate and all kinds of treats, we also tried a variety of different chocolates. I am not a big fan of weird flavours (I will not define what weird is here to avoid any conflict between Weird Chocolate Lovers).
Choc in the shell... Now you see it, now you don't.
Here is a drooling guide to all the different flavours. Which is your favourite? (These are not all the chocolates that were consumed in the name of this blog - the list is by no means exhaustive). We do have a winner however: Dulce de leche! It just melts in your mouth... Creamy dreamy enough and texture like the sweet rays of warm Spanish sun while having a siesta a la playa with a glass of sangria in your hand.
Stay tuned for more treats! Until then... Eat sweets!