Cheat Eat

Panettone And Pandoro

It was a Christmas spent abroad about 10 years ago that I tasted my first panettone and promptly fell in love with the delicious Milanese Christmas dessert. Since then, this sweet yeasty cake like bread and its Veronese cousin, the pandoro have become staples during the Christmas season with my family. We used to have to buy them from Australia and everyone would be fighting over a few loaves of bread. It speaks volumes about the growing popularity of the panettone and the pandoro in Singapore nowadays where even modest neighbourhood supermarkets like NTUC stock them for Christmas.

This is our first panettone of the year and in my favourite flavour too, a Tre Marie handmade loaf covered with dark chocolate icing. Yes, it is as yummy as it looks. Actually, by the time I publish this post, the panettone is already, burp, gone.

Longevity Peach

The longevity peach (shou tao) is not a fruit but a Chinese steamed bun in the shape of a peach, with lotus paste filling and coloured a bright festive pink. Traditionally, the shou tao is eaten at birthday celebrations of elderly folks where the buns are piled at least knee high on a tray.

Peaches are well known Chinese symbols of longevity and there is a Taoist story about the Queen Mother of the West who has a magical peach tree which bears peaches granting immortality to those who eat them. The tree however only bears fruit every three thousand years. The peach shaped steamed buns are made to symbolize those magical, immortality granting peaches. 

Battle Spoils From Takashimaya

This post is dedicated to L who has just moved to Sydney.

Eat your heart out, my dear friend. Bet you can't get these down under.