Of spices, cookies and winter drinks

Online baking class: Learn to bake Venetian cakes + cookies for the holidays in seven days: For beginners and experts!

A touch of Venice in your festive kitchen

Our first online baking class is here! If you've ever wished to add Venetian holiday cookies and cakes to your table, here's an easy solution: In seven days, you'll learn to make Venetian family recipes, cookies, and cakes. Everything now on offer in the pastry stores in Venice, plus Nonna Lina's favorites!


Venetian cookies for your festive table

Spicy, filled with delicious almond cream, berry-scented and shapes recalling Christmas: Want to taste the Venetian holiday sweets in your kitchen?

Christmas was celebrated very differently in the Levant, and thus Venice, for centuries an enclave of the East on "western" territory, created its own recipes, influenced by ancient Byzantine and Levantine cuisine. You can clearly notice this difference even today, in the food we eat, and in the cakes and cookies we bake for the holidays.

AS USUAL, YOU BRING VENICE ALIVE FOR MY SENSES, EVEN FROM SEAS AWAY. I CAN ALMOST SMELL THE CAKE AND IMAGINE HOW DELICIOUS THE COOKIES MUST BE. AND WHAT VENICE MUST LOOK LIKE ON A WINTRY NIGHT! - Arundhati Basu

What's inside: Baking class + virtual walks + e-book

Part One: Getting into the mood: Virtual walk

We start with virtual morning and evening walks around Venice, and you'll discover what a typical Venetian breakfast looks like in winter: Cappuccino, hot nougat chocolate and the best almond cream croissant in the world :-) Then, the evening walk takes you onto the other side of the Grand Canal, and you'll see the true flair of Venice on a winter night.

Part Two: Colorful online baking class (recipes for seven days)

The online baking class contains recipes for you to discover at your own time during seven days: Learn to bake one Venetian holiday specialty per day. These are easy recipes made with ancient Byzantine flavors, tested by generations of home cooks. You'll recognize many of them in the pastry stores in Venice. And finally, you'll learn how to create a Venetian Christmas landscape with the cakes and cookies, berries and fruit!



Here's the program for each day:

  • Day One: We'll start with the classic Christmas cookie recipe, biscotti venexiani. The result will be a colorful tray of Venetian cookies, like those made in the early morning in the pastry stores in Venice, and offered warm to the first clients of the day.
  • Day Two: You'll discover the real Venetian Christmas cake called la pinsa. A scented treat which my grandmother's generation used to eat first thing in the morning on 24 and 31 December, and on 6 January when the Byzantine Venetian Christmasis celebrated.
  • Day Three: Today, you'll discover our winter nut cookies enhanced with pinoli, dried fruit and grappa. 
  • Day Four: Enjoy desert rose cookies flavored with rose water.  
  • Day Five: The Venetian winter log cake looks sophisticated but is really easy to bake and decorate. Today, it's your turn to give it a try! 
  • Day Six: We're getting closer to Christmas Eve, so it's time to bake nuvoete, the Venetian winter cloud cookies. Nuoveta means little cloud in Venetian, they are fluffy and light, flavored with grappa or vanilla sugar. 
  • Day Seven: Learn to make Stella di Natale - the Venetian Christmas star cake, which we eat on 25 December. 

Part Three: Venetian winter drinks + extra recipes + e-book

Finally, we've got a couple of surprises for you: Discover the favorite winter drinks + winter cocktails + panettone gelato, and enjoy our complimentary ebook on holiday sweets, which includes more walks, more recipes, and a visit to the wintry Rialto Market.

Holiday Sweets from Venice

Online baking class: Learn to bake Venetian holiday cookies and cakes in seven days.

In Venice, the Christmas lights have been turned on in Piazza San Marco.  And now it's time to enjoy the typical recipes for December: Cakes, biscuits, pinsa, and rose desserts. 100 per cent authentic recipes, some dating back to the 13th century. Iris and Lina know what they're talking about, and share mouthwatering recipes and images. - Malena Fernandez - Read&Fly