This cool dessert is silky-sweet ricotta flavored with espresso coffee and spices. The cheese is packed into a pie dish, chilled, and then unmolded onto a cake plate. Serve it the way they do at the hill-country trattoria on the Tuscan-Romagna border called Croce Daniele—cut into wedges and streaked with a warm espresso chocolate sauce.
Moist, dark, spicy, but not too sweet, this is classic gingerbread. My addition of black pepper is because it was a constant ingredient in gingerbreads of the past. It sparks the other ingredients.
Ingredients
I know that suggesting homemade ice cream for an easy after-work supper makes me sound as if I'm going into deranged superwoman overdrive, but may I put the case for the defense?
This tender, buttery cake is based on the Marble Gugelhupf at Demel in Vienna, although I've added baking powder to give it the lighter crumb Americans prefer.
In Alta Verapaz, a lush and deeply forested region of Guatemala that was part of the ancient Mesoamerican chocolate empire, the Kekchi Maya roast cacao beans and grind them with ululte, the local name for the tiny but devilish chile piquin. They shape the resulting sticky paste into balls, which are then air-dried and stored. To add heat and flavor to feast dishes like the chompipe (turkey) and pepiaries (stews thickened with pumpkin seeds), they grate a little of this mixture over the food.
Brandy or Cognac can be used as long as it is a minimum of 80-proof.
Perfect for summer, especially when cherries are in season. With this sundae, the cherries don't go on top—they go into the ice cream. The "double" chocolate is the combo of bittersweet chocolate and crunchy nibs of cocoa bean. (One brand to look for is Michel Cluizel's "61% Cocoa with Cocoa Bean Nibs," or blend nibs, available in some fancy-food shops, with good bittersweet chocolate.) Prepare sauce and ice cream well ahead.
Ingredients
First thing you should know is that these donuts are worth eating a full day after you fry them.