Dolci: Italy’s Sweets Cookbook Review

You know it’s rare to find a cookbook that inspires you to want to make every recipe in it!   The recipes are simple, easy to follow, with most ingredients readily available at your local market, producing spectacular results.  (Sources are listed for the few ingredients that might require a specialty store.) Beautifully photographed, well written, and inspiring, this book will turn you into an Italian Dessert Guru:  Dolci:  Italy’s sweets by Francine Segan.

Francine Segan is an acclaimed food historian and author of four cookbooks, read more about her here.   In Dolci: Italy’s Sweets, Segan introduces us to the real Italy.  None of the recipes in this book are actually hers.  She gathered recipes from all corners of Italy.  Her recipes come from hip young food bloggers, grandmas in remote villages, from important Italian pastry manufactures and pastry chefs at small cafes. From thousands of recipes, she has selected the very best – a list that includes both the classics and desserts that contemporary Italians prepare in their homes today.

Chapters Include; Cookies & Bite sized sweets, Cakes & Sweet Breads, Refrigerator Cakes, Pies, Freezer Desserts, Spoon Sweets, Weird & Wonderful, unique & Unusual Desserts, Holiday Traditions, After Dinner Beverages, and last but not least; Basics.

While the book is beautifully photographed, the down side is the number of pictures.  There is not a lot of pictures, and for most of the recipes you’ll have to make it to find out what the finished product looks like.  I personally do not find this a deterrent. While I love to see more pictures in a book as most of us are visual, the book will still inspire you to make the contents within. With or without pictures.

Chocolate & Jam “Little Mouthfuls”

Filled with chocolate, ground almonds, and grape jam, these tiny, two-bite pies have an intriguing combination of flavors.  If the idea of making pie crust seems daunting, you’ll love this recipe.  Unlike most dough for pies and tarts, this one doesn’t require rolling or chilling and is just pressed into molds.  Made with olive oil, not butter, these mini pies are healthy as well as tasty.   Like so many dish in Italy, bocconotti vary from region to region.  This recipe is from Abruzzo, where they are filled with either a cooked reduced dessert wine called “Vin Cotto” or with a jam made from the local exquisite Montelpuciano grapes.  In Calabria, they are filled instead with just marmalade, and in the Lazio region, with sweetened ricotta. – Francine Segan

From: Dolci: Italy’s Sweets

Bocconotti

Makes about 3 Dozen

Region: Abruzzo, Calabria, and Lazio

6 Large Egg Yolks

1/2 Cup (100g) Sugar

1/2 Cup (120 ml) Olive or other Vegetable Oil

1/2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

Grated Zest of 1 Lemon

1 7/8 Cup (225g) All Purpose Flour

3/4 Cup (180ml) Grape Jam

1/3 Cup (45g) Almond flour or very finely ground blanched almonds

2 oz. (55g) Dark Chocolate, grated on a cheese grater

Pinch of Ground Cinnamon

(click pictures for another view.)

Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F. (180 Degrees C.)  In a medium bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar and beat with an electric mixer until golden-yellow and creamy.  Add the oil, vanilla, and half of the lemon zest and beat until combined. Gradually add the flour, mixing until a dough forms. Set aside.

In another medium bowl, combine the jam, almond flour, chocolate, cinnamon, and remaining lemon zest and stir until well combined.

Lightly oil 36 mini muffin cups or 2 inch (5 centimeters) tart molds.  Press about 1 rounded tablespoon of the dough into the bottom of each mold.  Top with a heaping tablespoon of the jam mixture.  Take another tablespoon of the dough and press it flat with your palms.  Top the filling with the disk of dough and press it flat with your palms.  Top the filling with the disk of dough and press it into the edges of the mold to seal  Sprinkle with sugar.  Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.

Verdict:  These little tarts are delicious. Easy and fun to make, they come together fast. The best part?  Eating them!   If you have the time, homemade jam would be best here.  If not, store-bought works just as well.  I see no reason these couldn’t be made in whatever flavor jam you might like.  I also plan on making them with the sweetened ricotta filling.

This beautiful, high quality, inspiring cookbook will attract all dessert lovers, especially, with its simplicity of the recipes, and in the ease of obtaining such spectacular results. This is a book that I will reach for over and over.  Recommended?  Highly! This book will not disappoint.

Full Disclosure:  I was given this book in exchange for a review.  The above review is my honest opinion of this book and the contents within.