Sweets from the Veneto Region originate from local peasants' traditions and are made of few simple ingredients. A simple tradition is to dip the sweets into a glass of white or red wine.Cookies like pevareti, zaleti, baicoli (from Venezia) and bussoeai (from the Burano island) used to be sold in country festivals. Cakes were often prepared using leftovers, such as torta Nicolotta, made with bread or polenta remains and fregolotta, which breaks into crumbs when you cut it.
Many of these sweets used to be prepared on festive occasions, such as the pinsa venessiana, to be eaten on the Befana's eve, the galani and the frittole at Carnival, pandoro at Christmas and colomba at Easter.
Sweets
Baicoli are an oval shaped specialty cookie of Venice. The name is derived from their shape that resembles a sea bass, which in local dialect is baicoli.
Colomba pasquale di Verona
Dolce del Santo A specialty of Padua, this sponge cake with apricot jam and marzipan is shaped like a ring to recall the halo of St Anthony, patron saint of Padua. A similar dessert is Pan del Santo, which is also made in the shape of a halo,
but filled with almonds, chocolate, and ground amaretto cookies.Galani Fritters flavored with orange and lemon zest and grappa, popular during Carnivale. They are also called crostoi.
Pandoro
Tiramisù
Torta pinza or Torta de pan A dessert dating back several centuries made by soaking day-old bread in milk and baking it with dried figs, raisins, hazelnuts, pine nuts and fennel seeds.
Zaleti A specialty of Venice, they are corn meal cookies seasoned with pine nuts and raisins. Often paired with a glass of passito wine.
Dessert Wines and Liqueurs
Acqua di Melissa, herbal liqueur made with lemon-balm (the name comes from the Latin for lemon-balm-Melissa officinalis)
Grappa Although grappa is produced in the town of Bassano del Grappa, it is not named after the town. The term grappa comes from the lees, graspa in Italian, used to distil the liquor.
Liquore all'uovo, egg liqueur, is a sort of eggnog-like drink which dates back to 1840. It is served both straight at room temperature or hot in winter. It's lovely drizzled over ice cream or panettone.
Maraschino, a distilled liqueur made with marasca cherries. It's most often drunk at the end of a meal, straight or on the rocks. It's also used in many dessert recipes.
Makers
Bauli
Doria
Melegatti
Vicenzi