Five Classic Italian Desserts That You Need To Include At Your Next Party
If you're like most busy people who love entertaining, you often rely on local catering services to supply the cuisine so that you can concentrate on creating an ideal ambiance for wining and dining your friends, family, or business associates. If there's a special occasion looming on the horizon of your social calendar, you may be already wondering what type of food to serve—and perhaps you're leaning toward Italian but aren't familiar enough with Italian confectionary traditions to know what to expect from the dessert menu. Here's a sneak preview of five popular Italian desserts that you might see on the menu of your local Italian catering company.
Panettone Bread Pudding With Amaretto Sauce
This traditional holiday dessert can be enjoyed any time of year, but like a steaming cup of deep, dark cocoa, it tastes best when it's chilly and blustery outside. It has the rich, festive notes that the Amaretto sauce brings to the table. It's best served warm and can be topped with a bit of vanilla bean gelato for an extra layer of deliciousness.
Chocolate Hazelnut Tartufo
Tartufo is a single-serving ball of gelato with melted chocolate inside—or in this case, melted chocolate mixed with hazelnut. This is another rich dessert that's great for fall or winter evenings by the fire. It takes more than a day to make this, so be sure to let your caterer know well in advance that you'd like to serve it at your soirée.
Raspberry Ricotta Fool
Unlike the previous two dessert choices, raspberry ricotta fool is strictly for warm weather celebrations. Not only does this dessert simply taste like deep summer, but it should only be served during the fleeting weeks when local raspberries are ripe—frozen berries or those flown from half a world away just don't work with this dessert.
Italian Lemon Cake
You're undoubtedly familiar with lemon pie, lemon bars, and lemon drops, but you may have never heard of lemon cake. Leave it to the Italians to come up with something so sublime and so simple at the same time—it's just a basic bundt cake flavored with fresh lemon juice and lightly dusted with powdered sugar. It's perfect for a garden party or as the grand finale to the first al fresco dinner party of the season in late spring.
Tiramisu
No Italian catering menu would be complete without an appearance by that country's iconic tiramisu, which is comprised of ladyfingers soaked in rich coffee and layered with a filling of whipped cheese, eggs, and sugar before being dusted with cocoa powder. Tiramisu is truly a dessert for all seasons that can be enjoyed just as much on a sultry summer evening as on a snowy night in mid-January.
Contact a local Italian catering company to learn more.