Sweet Italian-American Baking: Dolci!
Dolci! American Baking with an Italian Accent
If “dolci” translates as “sweet,” then this new book by the owner of the Ciao, Gloria bakery in Brooklyn qualifies on several levels.
Dolci! is indeed a sweet cookbook, paying homage to author Renato Poliafito’s parents and their immigration story. Its creations are also literally sweet—sometimes overstuffed with sugar. But solid recipes with inventive twists make this a book full of baking inspiration.
Broken into chapters on breakfast foods, cookies, pies, breads and “savories and street snacks,” a few drinks, bakery specialties, cakes, “spoons” (including gelato, semifreddo, tiramisu, puddings), and foundations (including whipped cream, buttercream, ricotta, sourdough starter, pizza dough), the book covers a lot of territory. It easily blends traditional recipes with modern takes, such as a cake based on an Aperol spritz, an Italian version of rice krispie treats that incorporates mascarpone, espresso, cocoa, and rum, and an amaro-spiked chocolate pecan pie.
And (further delighting this reviewer), Poliafito opens with a full-throated defense of baking by weight. Arguing in defense of the scale, he explains why he lists every ingredient by grams first, before including volume measurements (cups/tablespoons/teaspoons). He notes how, in many cookbooks, the opening pages go into detail on all the equipment cooks will need; instead, because Dolci! requires a minimum of specialty items, he uses the space to focus on “the most important piece of equipment any baker, at any level, should own.” Bravo.
Many of the creations went beyond what this reviewer had come to expect of Italian bakery treats—more looks than taste—but shyly so, needing a day to show their full flavor.
Poliafito declares his baking style with the first recipe, a blueberry Bundt cake. Noting that ciambella is a typical citrus breakfast cake in Italian bars, he ups the rich-and-sweet ante, with a full 2 cups of sugar, 1¼ cups of olive oil, 1 cup sour cream, and ½ cup mascarpone—and that’s just in the cake. Add 2 more cups of powdered sugar (ahem, 240 grams) and 2 tablespoons of honey for a thick glaze. Was the test of this delicious? Yes. Over the top? Certainly yes for breakfast, and even for dessert—while bakers can’t just cut sugar willy-nilly, some judicious trimming would do this cake good, such as flipping the drizzle emphasis from sugar to lemon juice, for more of a soak than a glaze. (For solid tips on how to experiment with reducing sugar in cake, see this King Arthur Baking post—one of the best sources for such questions, especially for bakers who want to delve a bit into the science without a full-day rabbit-hole excursion. Search their site for more posts on reducing sugar in cookies, pies, muffins, and more.)
Albi crunch bars likewise pushed sweet to the edge; these blondie-like bars swirled with apricot jam and filled with crunchy hazelnuts were, on the first day, slightly gooey when cut despite extra time in the oven, and gooey-ly cloying. But by day 2, the flavors seemed to meld, with the crisp top and nuts balancing the jam. Still, for a second go-round, it would be worth tarting up the jam with a strong dose of lemon juice and zest.
That day 2 effect also held true for the krispie bars; although the recipe says to let them set for two hours before cutting, they really needed 24. On day 1, they were overly wet; after drying out overnight, they became cookies tasters fought for.
Likewise, a flourless buckwheat chocolate torte, split and filled with raspberry jam, screamed sticky-sweet on the first day, but mellowed by the second as some jam soaked in. This is a good-looking cake, dusted with hot-pink freeze-dried raspberries pulverized to a powder—if you can maneuver the delicate top layer onto the jam with no cracking.
Scones rich with marsala-soaked dried figs, walnuts, cinnamon and cloves, candied orange, and mini chocolate chips proved less successful. The flavors were overwhelmed by the sheer size: The recipe calls for turning the dough slab into just eight scones. With 3 cups of flour, 9 tablespoons of butter, 1 2/3 cup cream, plus all the mix-ins, these are overwhelmingly thick and heavy, requiring up to 40 minutes to bake before being drizzled with a powdered sugar glaze. Far better to divide the dough into 16 or even 24 scones; even then, bakers may wish for something a bit lighter and flakier—briefly cutting the butter in with a food processor instead of a stand mixer could help.
Many recipes, even the more basic ones, may feel like plan-ahead projects, such as cinnamon rolls that start with brioche dough requiring 12 hours of chilling before filling, shaping, and frosting, or a cheesecake in which individual chocolate tart shells are filled with whipped cream, over which is piped chestnut puree mixed with chocolate meringues, or a wreath of 120 honey-glazed fried dough balls.
Often, recipes aim for a twist on a classic, such as mocha whoopie pies with an Italian buttercream and orange marmalade filling, or brioche sticky buns with a caramel topping that incorporates orange, pomegranate molasses, and pistachios, enclosing a filling of dark brown sugar, orange zest, cinnamon, and quiet hits of sumac and cardamom. Or how about a gingerbread version of amaretti, black and whites made with honey and ricotta and a thick cream frosting, or a cannoli-inspired cake?
Dolci! does keep a balance of quicker recipes mixed into the projects. “Torta Caprese” is not, as Americans probably first guess, a savory torte of mozzarella and tomatoes. Instead, it’s a fairly standard flourless chocolate torte, made with almond flour, that was, as Poliafito says, “deceptively rich”—and this time, not too sweet. (And unlike many recipes in the book that say they are best eaten on the day of baking, this can hold for several days.) A banana Nutella snack cake would also be quick, though even this is more elaborate than typical frosting-less snack cake. Here, too, a baker should consider reducing sugar; this recipe was not tested in part because of a weariness with the abundance of sugar: 2 cups for a 9-by-13-inch cake along with 1½ cups of overripe (read: sweet) bananas, plus ¾ cup Nutella and another 2 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting, which also includes a cup of vaguely sweet mascarpone.
A less-sweet, pure-flavored treat could be found in the for di latte gelato—a simple ice cream that’s all about the dairy. With 2 cups of milk and a cup of cream, thickened with nothing more than a cup of sugar and some cornstarch, this gelato offers a great base for a drizzle of chocolate, coffee, or fruit liqueur, or scooped over a pie slice. (Cooks can also speed up the process by cooling the mix quickly in an ice bath; even when not extremely chilled, it churned well a Cuisinart canister machine.)
Plunked between the pies and “specialties,” a street food chapter feels out of place with all the other sweet treats—the rationale for why these particular recipes included isn’t obvious. But bakers may appreciate the savory break, with recipes including sourdough focaccia, pizette, grissini, and cheddar taralli (all of which make some sense in a book for bakers, but less so the recipes for frittata, arancini, fried tagliolini balls, and four cocktails).
Quick takes:
Dolci! American Baking with an Italian Accent, by Renato Poliafito. 298 pages. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2024.
Photos: Simple, appealing shots of some but not all recipes.
Organization: Chapters on breakfast foods, cookies, pies, breads and “savories and street snacks,” a few drinks, bakery specialties, cakes, “spoons” (including gelato, semifreddo, tiramisu, puddings), and foundations (including whipped cream, buttercream, ricotta, sourdough.
Index: Comprehensive.
The Spice of Life
Everything is better with Pepper
She’s spicy but oh-so-sweet.
