Lemon and raisin oatmeal cookies

Days ago I was thinking (again) of certain ingredients and why they are so hated: aside from coconut and cilantro, I can’t think of anything that divides people as much as raisins do – at least here in Brazil. Every December there are hundreds of memes on Facebook and Twitter of either people saying how much they hate raisins and begging others not to add them to the Christmas dishes or people

Panettone muffins - for the days with no time (or will) to work with yeast

Last weekend my oven worked like crazy: I baked different types of cookies to give as gifts to people I adore (one of them being pfeffernüsse, my favorite Christmas cookies) and I also baked these delicious, perfumed and oh, so tender panettone muffins – they are the perfect solution to those days when I crave panettone but don’t have the time (or sometimes the will, let’s be honest here) to

Panettone

Even though I have been posting Christmas recipes at this time of the year for a long long time, I have not baked panettone – or chocottone, for that matter – in ages. We sometimes get panettones as gifts, and my husband sometimes buys some at this time of the year.

This year, however, Joao told me he wanted homemade panettone and since I was on a Christmas state of mind I decided to make it.

Garibaldi slice

The first time I ever heard of Garibaldi cookies was many, many years ago, on my dear friend Valentina’s blog – I wasn’t very fond of raisins then, I thought the cookies looked good but I never considered the idea of actually making them.

Through the years I learned to like raisins, then I tried dried currants for the first time eating scones in London (with loads of clotted cream – the