Italian Recipes

Verona's 'Golden Bread'. A towering, eight-pointed star-shaped Christmas cake. Incredibly buttery, intensely vanilla-scented, and lacking any dried fruit, heavily dusted with powdered sugar.

The majestic Milanese Christmas bread. A towering, incredibly light, butter-and-egg-rich sweet bread studded with raisins and candied citrus peel, taking days to make using a natural sourdough starter.

The flamboyant king of Sicilian desserts. A sponge cake layered with sweetened ricotta and chocolate chips, encased in green marzipan, and covered in intricate royal icing and candied fruit.

Grandmother's Cake. A comforting Tuscan tart featuring a tender shortcrust pastry filled with a thick, lemon-scented pastry cream, completely covered with pine nuts.

Hard, crunchy, twice-baked almond cookies from Tuscany. Packed with whole almonds and perfectly designed to be dunked into sweet dessert wine.

The quintessential Italian home-baked tart. A buttery, lemon-scented shortcrust pastry filled with a thick layer of high-quality fruit jam, topped with a lattice crust.

A wildly frothy, warm custard made by vigorously whisking egg yolks, sugar, and sweet wine over a double boiler until it becomes a light, boozy cloud.

The architectural marvel of Neapolitan pastry. A shell of incredibly thin, crackling, distinct layers of dough (like a lobster tail), filled with a fragrant semolina and ricotta cream.

Authentic, incredibly dense and smooth artisanal pistachio gelato. Made with a rich custard base and pure, unsweetened Sicilian pistachio paste.

The pride of Sicily. Blister-fried, crisp pastry tubes filled to order with a sweetened, incredibly creamy sheep's milk ricotta, studded with chocolate and candied fruit.

A silky, trembling 'cooked cream' dessert from Piedmont. Elegantly simple, flavored with real vanilla bean, and served with a vibrant berry coulis.

The most famous Italian dessert in the world. Layers of espresso-soaked ladyfingers enveloped in a rich, ethereal mascarpone cream, heavily dusted with cocoa powder.