If you take a look at the history of desserts and which ones have remained popular all over the world you will see that plenty of Italian dessert recipes stand out. These desserts range from slightly bitter to moderately sweet and a lot of them go nicely with a glass of wine or a liqueur. The Italians themselves often eat a piece of fruit as dessert instead of a traditional sweet Italian delicacy.
You might have paid a visit to an Italian bakery and, if so, you will have seen a large range of biscotti and cookies. The Italians enjoy dipping their biscotti in red wine. Many Italian cookies are sweet but not extremely sweet and a lot of the flavoring comes from the light glaze on top, as well as the nuts or candied fruit in the cookies. Biscotti are well known in the United States but the Italians eat harder, slightly sweet twice baked cookies than biscotti. The cookies are baked twice to remove moisture and make them hard, dry, and crumbly.
Very Famous Italian Desserts
Tiramisu is thought to have originated in Siena. Duke Cosimo de Medici enjoyed it so much that it spread around the world with Italian immigrants. Tiramisu is a delicious combination of lady finger cookies, liquor, espresso, cocoa, mascarpone cheese, and eggs.
The best known Italian cake has to be panettone, which is from Milan. Boxes of this cake can be found in cafes and Italian bakeries during the holiday season all over the world. The fluffy panettone dough is flavored with raisins and candied fruit pieces and the cake is shaped like a dome. Italians enjoy panettone with zabaglione custard or mascarpone cheese and a glass of liqueur or dessert wine.
Perhaps you have tried Italian gelato. This is ice cream made with milk, sugar and flavoring. Sometimes it contains eggs and cream. Gelato is churned less than regular ice cream, making it less airy and denser. These desserts are best eaten in moderation because a lot of them are very rich. If you find a lot of Italian treats heavenly but a bit too rich, why not make your own and change the ingredients to tone them down a bit?
Jello and Italian Dessert Recipes
Gelato is a great candidate for experimentation with jello. Italian ice cream is nearly free of air, which makes it dense and super heavy. By combining gelato, boiling water, and jello powder, you can create a deliciously light dessert with a nice texture and any jello flavor you like. You can use sugar free jello to halve the calories because half the dessert is jello and the sugar free kind is calorie free.
If you happen to own an ice cream machine, you can make gelato with kool aid and jello, which tastes great and makes a refreshing dessert on balmy summer evenings. Jello goes with a lot of ingredients, with fruit trifle being a great example.
Jello complements the flavors of chocolate, fruit, custard and much more. You can use it to make wonderful recipes like strawberry jello pretzel salad or to stretch Italian recipes further to feed a large family. Simple ideas such as poking holes in an Italian cake or sweet bread, pouring over jello and allowing it to set is a great dessert, which all the family will enjoy.
Jello salad recipes are not only easy to create but they look wonderful and taste even better. Jello salad recipes can be sweet or savory and they include such delights as festive Christmas jello salad, French beetroot and mint terrine, strawberry jello salad with cream and fruit and many more.
