For me, the winter season is directly connected to the Christmas season, it is a magical connection. They are cold days in which the mornings are almost always rainy and in the evenings you have to wrap up very warm.

   My favorite foods for these days are freshly baked breads, especially ham bread, accompanied with hot chocolate, and in the afternoons a coffee with freshly baked cookies.

   The smell that spreads throughout my home when the breads and cookies are in the oven is wonderful, and gives the house an extra warmth. I usually go baking at my daughter's house, and although we haven't baked breads these days, I want to share with you some pictures of last December's ham bread and a brief explanation of how I made it.

   The recipe is a bit complex because it has its secrets for the dough to rise, and the bread is soft after baking. I'm going to share with you the link to one I made and published right here, in #Hive. Among the preparation tips, I mention that I use olives with bones because the ones with paprika change the flavor and can even damage it after a few days. The raisins I use are the smallest ones because the bigger the raisins, the sweeter they are and I don't like the bread to become too sweet. And the most important touch is the smoky flavor given by the bacon and smoked ham, this fusion of flavors is indescribable.

   I can eat the ham bread all this month, and in the afternoons, with a hot chocolate or a coffee with milk, the combination during those cold days, is wonderful, of course, with a good company and with a fun get-together.

   Thanks for reading me. This is my entry in Ecency Support's initiative entitled: Writing Contest - My favorite Winter food. Grateful to @ecency-star for the invitation, which I extend to my friends @brujita18 and @mercmarg. To participate, you can enter the highlighted title.

SOURCES OF IMAGES:

All content images belong to my personal gallery.
The translator used is: Deepl Translator