Herb Focaccia and Tiramisu - Tastes of Tuscany

No proper Italian dinner would be complete without some homemade bread and a silky, flavorful dessert. So for the Pane (bread in Italian) my friend Lynn baked a delicious pan of herby, cheesy Focaccia bread. She used one of my recipes that I sourced online from Chef Anne Burrell. It was slightly crisp on the outside (due to all of the amazing olive oil) and super tender and full of holes on the inside to sop up all of the great sauces we enjoyed on our pasta courses. Click here for a link to my post that has information on how to bake this traditional Italian bread.

What a gift it was to cook on this tile covered Italian stove!

We ended our Tastes of Tuscany dinner party with a dolce (sweets) course. Ceresa’s lovely version of Tiramisu. There is some disagreement regarding its origin, some say the 1960s in Treviso, Italy…others say it became popular a decade or so later. But who cares? All I know and many others agree it is absolutely delicious. It uses coffee (which Italians are experts in)as well as tangy Italian mascarpone cheese, a bit of rum and chocolate. Our friend Ceresa’s version was very close to what we were taught to make during our cooking class in Tuscany.

Here is Tim soaking the lady fingers in some dark and delicious espresso.

Alan carefully spreads the mascarpone cheese mixture over the espresso soaked lady fingers.

Below you see the final dish that Alan and Tim created during our cooking class in Tuscany and the one our dear friend Ceresa treated us to as the finale to our Tastes of Tuscany dinner. Click here to find the recipe that Ceresa used to make this wonderful dessert.

The original version added some fresh strawberries to the layers and on top.

Here is Ceresa’s version of Tiramisu. Layers of tender cookies that have soaked up espresso and rum with luscious layers of mascarpone cheese and topped with a dusting of cocoa and shaved chocolate.

Grazie for coming along with me as I have shared my Italian cooking adventure. Bringing these memories back to my home in the US and turning what we learned in our private cooking class into a theme for our latest supper club dinner party has been special. Having our friends participate in recreating these Italian classics was more than I could have hoped for.

If you love all things Italian as much as I do, especially their famous cuisine, I urge you to plan a vacation to the Tuscany region of Italy. You will bask in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and beauty of this unique part of the world. Second best…use the recipes I’ve shared through my Tastes of Tuscany posts to create a bit of Tuscany in your home. Salute and Ciao!

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