Italian Desserts

Tonight Taste Magazine is featuring Italian Desserts.  Some you may know--some you may not.  I am an Italian.  I grew up in Rochester, NY.  In New York there are Italian Bakeries in every town.  Most people buy their bread and desserts from their local bakery. 

Ok - on to the yummy desserts.

Tiramisu - is a wonderful dessert.  It is made from lady fingers, espresso coffee and mascarpone.  It is not super sweet and it is light. 

Cannoli-  the shell of the cannoli is made of fried pastry.  The stuffing in a cannoli is made from ricotta or impastata cheese.  Some cannolis have chocolate added or cherries.  Cannolis are crisp and sweet. They originated in Sicily. 

Spumoni Ice Cream - I love spumoni but it is very hard to find in the South.  Spumoni is usually made from cherry, pistachio, and chocolate ice cream.  It usually contains candied fruit and nuts. 

Gelato - Gelato is made with milk, cream, various sugars, and flavoring such as fresh fruit and nut purees. Gelato tastes lighter than ice cream and the added flavors are much stronger. 

Napoleon - Crisp, flaky layers of puff pastry layered with Italian Cream filling. It has a vanilla type icing with chocolate swirled throughout. 

Pizzelle - A pizzelle is a traditional Italian cookie.  It is made from a batter that is poured onto a waffle-like machine.  Most pizelles are flavored with vanilla, anise, chocolate, lemon and almond. 

Sfogiatelle - pronounced s-voy-a-tell.  Sfgiatelle is a shell shaped pastry with many layers and filled with a ricotta cream filling. 

Zeppole - is fried dough.  It is basically pizza dough deep fried and rolled in sugar or powdered sugar.  It is similar to a glazed donut.  It is light and airy and sweet. 

There are so many Italian Desserts--we will definitely have to have a part two to this blog entry.

Hope I made you hungry!