Panettone with Alpina pistachio cream

Panettone with Crema Alpina Pistacchio, cream-filled

The Panettone with Crema Alpina Pistacchio is an Italian Christmas cake filled with a cream made from Marzadro's pistachio liqueur. An airy yeast crumb, a green filling, and a full kilogram to share. Not a dry cake from a supermarket shelf, but one that is much closer to a dessert.

Panettone with Crema Alpina Pistacchio is the filled Christmas cake from the Marzadro Distillery in Trentino: a classic panettone with the cream of their own house pistachio liqueur inside the crumb. What usually ends up in a glass after a meal at Marzadro is here featured in a cake. Weighing 1 kg and baked in paper, it is significantly closer to a dessert than a traditional fruit stollen.

Once sliced, it becomes clear why it isn't cut into cubes: the crumb is airy and fibrous, with the light green pistachio cream tucked in between. In terms of aroma, the sweet yeast leads, followed by the pistachio—nutty, creamy, and mild, with that milky tone provided by the Crema Alpina.

Green cream in an airy crumb

The cream is inside the crumb itself rather than layered on top, which is why the cake stays intact when sliced.

A panettone thrives on a long fermentation process: yeast, butter, eggs, and time create that fibrous structure that can be pulled into strips instead of crumbling. This is precisely the crumb that carries the cream. It remains soft, it doesn't dry out, and because the pistachio remains mild, it doesn't overpower the yeast dough. Creamy, nutty, festive—and less heavy than 1 kg of cake might sound. It easily serves 8 to 10 people.

Alpine cream from Trentino, followed by pistachio

Crema Alpina is Marzadro's cream liqueur made from fresh Trentino mountain milk, and at 17% ABV, it is one of the lighter representatives of its kind.

The name tells you where the velvety tone comes from: cream from the Alps. The milk comes from the valleys around the distillery, and what it brings to the table is also present in the cake's filling—not thickeners, but real cream. There are now eight varieties in the range, from hazelnut and coffee to salted caramel, and the pistachio is the greenest of them all.

If you would like to try the liqueur on its own, you can find it as cream liqueur made from alpine milk; the entire range is available under the Crema Alpina Liqueurs.

Nogaredo in the Adige Valley, since 1949

At Marzadro, mixing and distilling take place in Nogaredo, not far from Lake Garda, where Sabina Marzadro started in 1949 with two stills.

Over the decades, this beginning grew into a family business now run by Andrea, Anna, and Stefano Marzadro—as a family affair, just as Sabina had envisioned. The house is famous for grappa, above all the Diciotto Lune, which spends eighteen moons, or 18 months, in barrels. The cream liqueurs came later, and with them, this cake.

If you prefer your treats sharp rather than creamy, there is the Panettone with Grappa, in which the raisins are soaked in the spirit. Both are part of the assortment from the Adige Valley.

Room temperature, in wedges, with a glass on the side

Take it out of the packaging a good hour before serving, because the crumb is softest and the aroma most open at room temperature. In Italy, panettone is torn into wedges lengthwise rather than cut into slices—you can do exactly the same here.

We like to serve it with a small glass of the pistachio liqueur, chilled to 8 to 10 degrees, and for those who like it even creamier, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Toast any leftovers briefly the next day, as the warmth reawakens the yeast and pistachio. Store in a cool, dry, and well-sealed place so that the filled crumb does not dry out. A Christmas afternoon needs nothing more.