Tortas, crostatas, and biscotti galore!

With a recipe for a delicious Italian-inspired summer dessert.

While in Venice and Florence last week, I was reminded time and again of the simplicity of Italian desserts. I visited many pasticcerias with variations on all sorts of Italian pastries as well as local specialties, like the Venetian butter cookies, Bussola. Everywhere you looked it was cannoli, biscotti, amaretti… cookies galore. I was also told that tiramisu was Venetian in origin so most every restaurant menu included a take on this beloved classic, some more successful than others.

Several takes on tiramisu in Venice

The breakfast buffets were always generous in cake offerings and as someone who enjoys the occasional sweet breakfast, I happily filled my plate with all sots of tortas and tea cakes. There’s nothing quite like a slice of crostata alla marmellata (apricot jam tart) with a cappuccino in the morning.

Breakfast buffet at my hotel in Venice.

Compared to the French, Italians like to keep their desserts pretty simple, one of my favourite being a biscotti (or two!) dunked in a glass of Vin Santo, which we enjoyed in Tuscany, the Chianti region to be more specific.

Sometimes, though, I found the Italian way with desserts a bit too austere to my pastry-chef tastes. In Florence at Trattoria Cibréo, we finished our dinner with a Torta al Cioccolato (chocolate cake) that was very nice, but served solo, lacked the constrast of flavours, textures or temperature to make me want to polish off the plate.

Cibrèo’s Torta al Cioccolato, delicious, but too plain for my taste.

I’m not one of those people who yearns for a triple chocolate brownies with Oreo ice cream and fudge sauce. But a little gussying-up is always welcome with plain-Jane desserts. So when I returned home I wanted to enjoy an Italian dessert with a little more pizzaz. I found a recipe for the famous torta caprese, which hails from the Island of Capri, whipped it up and an hour later was slicing strawberries to serve alongside.

In the first volume of The River Café cookbook, there’s a recipe for their Chocolate Nemesis, a dense chocolate cake made with only four ingredients: eggs, chocolate, sugar and butter. It’s a difficult cake to get right, costs a fortune to make, and is exceedingly rich. I ate a slice 25 years ago at the River Café and loved it, but would find it de trop today.

What I like about the torta caprese is that it’s moist (as is the norm with flourless cakes) but isn’t at all cloying in that ganache-texture sort of way. And because it’s not too rich, I like serving it with a scoop of ice cream — vanilla or pistachio — and a fresh berries. The Nemesis is served with crème fraîche, which is always an option too. You could also sprinkle over some chopped, toasted hazelnuts or pistachios, but avoid baking them in the cake because they will wreck the cake’s smooth texture.

I’ll be serving this cake all summer and after you try it, I bet you will too.

Torta Caprese

Serves 8