Italy’s best traditional regional desserts

A curious hybrid of a tart and a custard, these sweet bites are usually eaten in Tuscany for breakfast or as a tasty snack. A small, boat-shaped shell of shortcrust pastry is filled with a creamy rice pudding flavoured with lemon zest and sometimes Sambuca (anise-flavoured liqueur), then baked. There’s also the somewhat similar torta di riso from Emilia-Romagna (shown above), which is served as a cake without the pastry.

How is it that one of the most traditional Italian homely desserts – widespread in all the central regions of the country (yet hard to find on restaurant menus these days) – is named after England? Nobody knows for sure as its origins are uncertain, even though it’s mentioned in the famous cookbook by Pellegrino Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, published in 1891. Was it an attempt to recreate an English trifle after a request by the Dukes of Este, the family ruling Ferrara? Perhaps. The recipe, however, is well-known: several layers of sponge cake or savoiardi are dipped in a bowl filled with Alchermes (a red-pinkish herbal liqueur), crema pasticciera (a thick, lemon-scented egg custard) and sometimes chocolate cream or a fruit compote. It is usually served in a transparent bowl to display the colourful layers and sometimes comes topped with crunchy almonds, chocolate chips or small meringues.

A typical recipe of the Roman Jewishtradition, this tart is as simple as it is scrumptious. Its origin dates back to the eighteenth century, when a papal decree forbid Jewish people to sell dairy products to Christians. They thus decided to ‘hide’ ricotta cheese between two layers of pastry and sour black cherries. Today, in the pastry shops in the Jewish quarter of Rome (as well as in many other areas of the city and in almost every Roman trattoria), one can find different versions of the original recipe.It could come as a pie fully covered with shortcrust pastry or a simple ricotta tart topped with a generous amount of sour cherries (fresh or in jam). The contrast between the sweetness of the cheese and the sour taste of the fruit never fails to delight the palate.

This tall, soft and airy version of a sponge cake, either baked in the traditional ring-shaped mould or in an individual portion with its peculiar mushroom shape and soaked with syrup or rum, brings the art of rising to the extreme. Despite its Polish origins (babka ponczowa was the name of a cake created by Stanislaus Leszczyński, the exiled king of Poland who decided to soften the dough of a typical Alsatian cake with alcohol), babà is commonly considered a symbol of Neapolitan culinary and cultural heritage. Saying to someone you love ‘you are a babà’ means they’re very sweet and kind.

Naples might be famous for being the birthplace of pizza, but it has a long history of creating incredible confectionery. Among its many traditional sweet recipes, sfogliatelle deserves a place of honour. A crisp, multi-layered and crinkled shell of thin puff pastry – sometimes replaced by a softer and smooth shortcrust casing in modern versions – is shaped like a lobster tail and filled with a luscious mix of ricotta cheese, semolina, sugar, eggs and candied citrus. The archetypal recipe – called Santarosa in honour of the eponymous monastery near Salerno where it was born – was created by a nun, who invented a way to use up leftover semolina. What a blessing.

A crumbly oval crust – originally made with lard, now often replaced by butter –holds a scrumptious filling made of crema pasticciera (egg custard) and sometimes preserved sour cherries. Similar to other traditional Italian sweets, this Puglian recipe – created by a local pastry chef in 1745 and typical of the Salento area, specifically around the beautiful town of Lecce – is very famous. Once you experience the bliss of eating a warm pasticciotto, just out of the oven for breakfast, you will crave it for the rest of your life!

Cheese and honey are the key ingredients of this typical Sardinian treat, which was originally served as a main course given its rich and filling nature. A round puff pastry shell (made with durum wheat, water and lard) is filled with fresh cow or ewe cheese before being sealed, deep-fried and covered with sugar or honey. Seadas should be eaten piping hot, when the cheese is still melting and mixed with the sweet honey, creating a lovely contrast.

An ancient, traditional recipe originally baked for Carnival and now eaten all year in every corner of the beautiful island of Sicily, the famous cannoli – taking its name from the fact that a river cane was originally used to shape the dough – mixes Arab influences, conventional culinary traditions and local ingredients such as ricotta, honey (now replaced by sugar) and candied citrus. The scorza (‘rind’, a thin, tube-shaped shell of fried dough) is filled with a creamy mix of ricotta and sugar which – depending on the area of the region and on personal preferences – can also be mixed with chocolate cream or chocolate chips, then decorated with candied fruits, chopped almonds or pistachios. The secret to the perfect cannolo? It should be filled right before serving, to stop the scorza getting soggy.