Solo Dolci

Fithian Press is proud to present Solo Dolci, a collection of Italian desserts from all over the map of Italy, some newly invented by the finest Italian chefs, others that have delighted Italian taste buds for centuries. These tasty recipes are gathered together by Anna Bruni Benson of Los Angeles.
A native of Venice, Dr. Benson has been cooking Italian desserts almost all her life.

"My very first memories of homemade desserts go back to my childhood," Dr. Benson recalls. "We often visited my paternal grandparents in Abruzzo, where my grandmother's large kitchen was resplendent with copper pots and pans hanging on the walls, and had, besides modern appliances, a big black fireplace and a long table with a gray marble top, at the head of which my little nonna sat like a queen on her throne, giving orders right and left to her helpers.

"It was there that I saw the sweet bread dolls being made for her granddaughters and the little horses for her grandsons. At first I was allowed only to place the pepper grains for the eyes. The big excitement came when I could actually get my hands nice and sticky with the dough and help with the shaping of the dolls and horses.

"Other times I watched, fascinated, the two men charged with making the Torrone, the honey and almond candy I loved, taking turns mixing this concoction in a big cauldron hanging over the fireplace. When the torrone mix was ready to be cut on the marble table, I was there with my little knife eager to help-and I always ended up with one small bar all to myself.

"Another happy memory is the making of the Cicerchiata, a dough and honey cake, in which I would take active part rolling some of the dough into sticks and cutting them in small pieces, which we then deep fried and threw into boiling honey to be shaped later into a ring.

"When I was old enough to make desserts all by myself, however, World War II came. There were no eggs, sugar, or butter to spare. My first cookies, made with all sorts of substitutes, were as hard as rocks. But they were better than nothing during the long hours we had to spend after school in Venice, waiting for the sirens to tell us that the aerial alarm was over and we could take the ferry home. I called these cookies, which I shared with my classmates, 'I biscotti dell'allarme,' the alarm cookies.

"Eventually I became the pastry chef of our family and was charged with making desserts for all the festivities and for visiting friends. With some of these friends I exchanged recipes and started writing them down in little notebooks, which began to overflow with these and other recipes, until, one day, much later, I decided to write a dessert cookbook."

Solo Dolci offers a full array of recipes-fresh fruit desserts, fruit cakes and pies, nut cakes and cookies, creams, puddings, mousses and souflés, ice creams and spumoni. The book also contains a chapter discussing Italian dessert wines, region by region, and a chapter on regional desserts. The result is, in the words of restaurateur Piero Selvaggio, "a diary of traditional, typical, and honest recipes-very useful, very comforting," all presented with style and good taste by an aficianado who has spent a lifetime researching and celebrating the art of Italian desserts.

Anna Bruni Benson is a long-time resident of Los Angeles, California. Dr. Benson is a member of Ciao, Italia and the Italian Heritage Foundation. In 1991 she was a guest pastry chef for the International Culinary Institute of Los Angeles; she has also taught classes in Italian desserts for the Beverly Hills Adult Education Program. Having earned her Ph.D. from UCLA, she was professor of romance languages and literatures at California State University, Northridge from 1967-1987 and vice president of the Dante Alighieri Society from 1970-1985. She has produced and directed several plays in the Italian language, her poems and translations have been published in both the United States and Italy, and she has contributed articles to L'Italo Americano. An avid gardener, she is now working on a new book, The Italian Garden Cookbook.