Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen [Hardcover]

Gina DePalma (Author), Mario Batali (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2007

Scrumptious, easy-to-make Italian desserts from the hand of a master.

“Follow the seasons. Keep the flavors pure and straightforward. Use proper yet simple techniques.” Applying this aesthetic to the Italian tradition, Gina DePalma has created a cookbook of the desserts that have wowed diners at Babbo, New York’s most coveted reservation since it opened eight years ago with DePalma as pastry chef. From her exciting imagination spring desserts such as Sesame and White Corn Biscotti, Little Grappa Soaked Spongecakes, and Chocolate and Tangerine Semifreddo. Recipes for classics like Cassata alla Siciliana join new interpretations of traditional desserts such as White Peach and Prosecco Gelatina. More than just a cookbook, Dolce Italiano reveals the ten ingredients you need to know to make Italian desserts, along with wine pairings to accompany the recipes. Never before has a cookbook given home cooks a chance to experience the full variety and subtlety of Italian desserts. Mario Batali has called Dolce Italiano “pure inspiration.”

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gina DePalma is the pastry chef at Manhattan's Babbo, home of Mario Batali's most acclaimed Italian fare. In Dolce Italiano, DePalma offers 90-plus doable recipes for a wide range of traditional and signature Italian sweets, such as Chocolate and Walnut Torte from Capri, Venetian Apple Cake, and Sesame and White Corn Biscotti. DePalma also provides illuminating asides on techniques and ingredients, including information on such "indispensable" items as honey, ricotta, mascarpone and grappa. Particularly notable chapters explore fried and festival sweets.

DePalma writes passionately about "dolce," revealing at one point her obsessive attempt to track down the best ricotta cheesecake. Most readers will share her attraction to the Italian dessert repertoire, which, though it lacks the richness and invention of, say, its French equivalent, appeals through simple good taste. Readers seeking a thorough introduction to Italian dessert making, presented in the context of its bounteous history and the author’s devotion to her subject, can do no better than to explore Dolce Italiano. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. DePalma, pastry chef at upscale Italian restaurant Babbo in New York City (owner Mario Batali contributes a foreword), approaches Italian-American desserts from three directions: traditional Italian (Polenta Cookies from the Veneto); Italian-American, learned at the elbow of her Calabrese grandmother (in a charming introduction, DePalma recalls how her grandmother used to visit her family in Virginia, stepping off the plane from New York bearing hunks of cheese, cans of olive oil and DePalma's favorite taralli); and what are best described as American-Italian. The latter are true hybrid desserts, such as a crustless Yogurt Cheesecake with Pine Nut Brittle, which combines mascarpone and the Greek-style yogurt now widely available in U.S. grocery stores. This concoction has probably never appeared on any menu in Italy, but it successfully marries ingredients and techniques from both places, without losing sight of the genuine quality that is the hallmark of Italian food. DePalma's tone is genuine, too, whether she's recalling how she woke up in the middle of the night in her Brooklyn apartment to obsess over a lemon tart or patiently explaining why real balsamic vinegar is costly, but worth it. (Oct.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393061000
• ISBN-13: 978-0393061000
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Italy Without Leaving Your Kitchen, October 8, 2007

By 

K. Riemann - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen (Hardcover)

Last week I got a copy of Dolce Italiano for my birthday. Now you have to know a few things, I love reading cookbooks. I also love cooking from cookbooks, but rare is the book that provides excellent reading material, excellent insight, and excellent recipes. For example, I love the recipes in Ina Gartens' Barefoot Contessa series, but I can read one of her cookbooks in a sitting.

Not true, for Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen. Gina DePalma has crammed so much incredible information, and heartfelt stories into her book, that I've been reading it for five days now and still have several more nights of enjoyment left to look forward too (not to mention months of recipes to try). From the introduction which gives you insight into Gina's background, to the ten Italian ingredients you must know (which section, by the way, I still haven't finished digesting), even if every recipe was a dud, you'd still have gotten your money's worth in entertainment and reference.

Now, in all honesty, I've only made one recipe, the Fresh Fig Tart, (well two if you count the crust and actual tart as two separate recipes), but man is that good, and easy - so I highly doubt there will be any duds in this book.

Tarts (and pies) have always intimidated me, but this crust came together so easily in the food processor. Then rolling it out, well, once I got over my fear of flouring the surface (I put a scant amount down the first time), it rolled out great on the second try. I followed Gina's advice and carpet-rolled it over my rolling pin to transfer it to the tart pan, simple. Also, throughout the book Gina gives practical advice on other things too. So like she suggested, I saved the leftover crust from trimming the excess, wrapped it and put it in the freezer. Gina notes that after you make two tarts, you'll have enough of these left over scraps to do a third (that's good advice as far as I'm concerned). She also gives advice on ingredients, how to choose, and where to buy some of the more obscure items (though there aren't too many of these, things like "00" flour and almond flour, maybe).

The book covers, cookies, cakes, spoon desserts, tarts, ice creams, sorbets and semifreddos, fried desserts, fruit and more (personally, my husband can't wait to try the fried dough as he's been searching for something close to his grandma's lost recipe for years now - we're hopeful) all as authentically Italian as I've ever seen on this side of the Atlantic. Next up though will be the lemony semolina cookies.

So basically, if you love desserts, you need this book. If you love all things Italian you need this book. Or even if you're like me, where dessert has been a second thought to your meal planning (I'm queen of cookies and washday cobblers), you really need this book.

Enjoy!

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Close your eyes ------- no, they're too beautiful!, October 8, 2007

By 

Mariana Monterossi "Italophile" (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen (Hardcover)

The desserts in this book are just incredible; if you close your eyes, you will think you are eating in Italy, but then you will be missing the gorgeous photos in this book.

My little group of friends and I have already made, and eaten, the hazelnut cookies (devoured), the biscotti, and the fig tart! Go, buy this book and try the fig tart while they are in season! 'Cuz that's a clue to this book --- fresh ingredients, wonderfully prepared.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's OK, March 29, 2008

By 

reader guy (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen (Hardcover)

I have made quite a few recipes from this book and almost each one needed adjusting in bake time or temperature (or both!). It is not my oven; I never have problems with recipes from other sources. Also, some of the directions are vague; if I were not a seasoned baker I would be in a quandary about a few steps here and there. The end result of almost everything I have made turned out pretty terrific, so I can't complain on that front. I just wish the recipes were better written and better tested. Perhaps next time Ms. DePalma and her editors would be well-advised to employ less editorial interludes and more time spent on instruction in their approach to writing a cookbook.