In Campania you can recognise Christmas by its scent. By early December kitchens are filled with honey, cinnamon, cloves and orange zest, and the trays that will stay full until Epiphany appear on every table. There are many festive sweets, different from city to village, and each has its story. We have gathered the ones you cannot miss, with a few detours into the inland provinces.
The Neapolitan tray
In Naples and the surrounding area Christmas sweets are not served one at a time: they are arranged together on a large mixed tray, offered to guests throughout the holidays. Many of them share one ingredient: pisto, a blend of ground spices that usually includes cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, anise and coriander. Pisto gives them the unmistakable aroma that Neapolitans associate with Christmas.
Many of these sweets are made days in advance, because they improve with rest, and they are kept in the tins every family brings out only in December. Some always end up as gifts: exchanging a plate of struffoli or a parcel of mostaccioli with neighbours, relatives and friends is a Christmas gesture repeated across the region, and turning it down would almost be an insult.
Struffoli
Struffoli are the symbol of the Neapolitan Christmas: small balls of fried dough bound with honey and decorated with coloured sprinkles, the diavolilli, and candied fruit, above all citron and cucuzzata, candied squash. They are made in large quantities because they are given to relatives and neighbours, and every family defends its own recipe. We have devoted a whole article to them: read our guide to struffoli (in Italian).
Roccocò and mostaccioli
Roccocò are flattened rings made with flour, sugar, whole almonds, candied peel and pisto. They are hard, very hard, and that is exactly why they keep so long: some dip them in wine or liqueur, others soften them by leaving them out for a few days. Traditionally people start baking them for the Immaculate Conception on 8 December. You will find history and tips in our article on roccocò (in Italian).
Mostaccioli are diamond-shaped and covered in chocolate glaze. The dough is soft and spiced with pisto. The name recalls the ancient use of cooked grape must to sweeten these biscuits, a practice that survived for a long time in many country homes.
Susamielli, raffiuoli and divino amore
Susamielli are S-shaped biscuits made with honey, almonds and pisto. The name refers to sesame, which once covered them. It is said they were also made in Neapolitan convents, where nuns baked sweets for noble families; for this reason they are also called "sapienze", after a convent in the city.
Raffiuoli are small oval sponge cakes, often filled with a thin layer of jam and covered in white icing. Divino amore, meanwhile, is a small square of almond paste with a pink glaze, whose name tradition traces back to a Neapolitan convent. The tray is completed by pasta reale, almond and sugar marzipan shaped into fruit or small figures.
Irpinia and Sannio: nougat and chestnuts
Leaving the coast, Christmas in Campania changes flavour. In Sannio the most important sweet tradition is torrone, nougat. Benevento has for centuries been one of Italy's capitals of this treat, made with honey, egg white and almonds or hazelnuts, soft or crunchy. In San Marco dei Cavoti, in the Fortore area, they make a chocolate-coated nougat that the village celebrates every year with a dedicated festival, and it finds its way onto tables across the region.
In Irpinia the star is the chestnut. Castagne del prete, "priest's chestnuts", typical of the Montella area, are dried, toasted and then rehydrated in water, becoming soft with a smoky taste: they are eaten on long winter evenings and accompany the holidays. Nougat also stars at other December feasts: every year at the Saint Lucy bonfire in Mugnano del Cardinale, among the typical flavours of the vigil are the «pupatella» made of dried figs and, indeed, torrone.
Cilento and inland villages: festive fritters
In the villages of Cilento and inland Salerno, Christmas is the season of home-made fried sweets. Among the best known are scauratielli, little rings of dough first "scalded" in boiling water, hence the name, then fried and dipped in honey. Alongside them, in many families across the region, come fried zeppole of leavened dough, plain or sugared: you can still find them freshly made along the route of the Pietrelcina living nativity in Sannio.
Recipes change from village to village and often from house to house, and our advice is to ask: whoever makes them is almost always happy to tell you how.
Where to taste them during the holidays
The best way to get to know Campania's Christmas sweets is to be invited into someone's home, but the season's events offer good opportunities too. Every year at the Pietrarsa Christmas market, between Naples and Portici, you will meet Campanian producers and street food; the living nativity scenes of Agerola and Albori offer tastings of local products along the way.
To complete the picture, read our article on Christmas in Campania (in Italian) and the one on Christmas Eve, where we describe the dinner that comes before dessert. And remember the rule of every Campanian home: the tray always stays in sight, because at Christmas you never say no to a sweet.
