Award-winning dessert lasagna by Chef Michael Stambaugh. Photo and recipe courtesy of the National Pasta Association.

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March 2005

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Desserts

Dessert Pasta

Pasta for Dessert?  Chocolate Pasta?

Of course—just hold the Parmesan!

Anyone who ever grew up with a grandmother who made nudel kugel, that German dessert and comfort food composed of short, flat noodles, pot cheese, sugar, cinnamon, and raisins, should not be surprised to see the dessert lasagna at the left.  It’s just the Italian variation using broader noodles, ricotta instead of pot cheese, fresh fruit instead of raisins. (Click here for the recipe.)

While everything old is new again, for a country that lives on pasta as we do, the dish is very under-represented in the dessert department.  Consider this THE NIBBLE’s attempt to develop the genre.

We’ll assembled more than a dozen dessert pasta concepts.  You can click here to send us yours. 

• We have provided some recipes that have been professionally tested. Others are suggestions where you can use your favorite recipe, or readily find one (e.g. for cannoli cream).
• Note that THE NIBBLE™ is not a cooking publication with recipe developers and a test kitchen. We thus have not tested any of the recipes but have printed them as they were given to us.

Regular pasta works fine with dessert—the unsweetened pasta is a counterpoint to the sweet additions.  If you want, you can give more “dessert” flavor to the pasta by:

• Adding a tablespoon of sugar and/or a teaspoon of vanilla to the cooking water.
• Putting an herbal tea bag in the cooking water: lemon, raspberry, any fruit or flavor combination that compliments what you plan to make. We’ve even used green tea and chai for a more exotic outcome.  Look at the dessert recipes on Stash.com for more inspiration.

Impressive Presentations

1. Dessert Lasagna Recipe

Make it with summer berries, as above; with chocolate shavings and alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate ricotta; with chocolate and butterscotch chips and a side of light brandied caramel sauce; with fall fruits (cooked apples, cherries, pears); or a fusion version of Grandma’s kugel—lasagna noodles with ricotta, dried cherries and blueberries (and toss in some almond slivers).  Click here for the recipe shown at the top left.

2. Chocolate Fettuccini Mont Blanc Recipe

For this reason alone, but also because part of Mont Blanc itself is in France, part in Italy, it's more than appropriate to replace the meringue with a nest of chocolate pasta.

Look in specialty food stores or Italian supermarkets: chocolate fettuccini is a classic accompaniment to wild boar ragu and venison.

Click here for the recipe from The New York Times Cookbook of James Beard.  While Beard’s recipe is classic, variations include serving the Mont Blanc inside a large meringue cup, serving small meringues on the side, and/or adding an accompaniment of marrons glacées.

3. Songbirds’ Nests Recipe

In advance, select three different colored ice creams for “eggs.” Hand-mold each scoop into an oval egg shape and put back into the freezer on a tray (clear plastic gloves disposable or putting your hands in baggies from the produce section can make this easier). Cook chocolate fettuccini. Coil cooked fettuccini into small nest shapes.  Let cool. At dessert time, assemble and serve.

Egg fettuccini or saffron fettuccini for birds' nests, from AlfonsoGourmetPasta.com.

Dessert Spaghetti Recipes

4. Fettuccini With Chocolate Sauce Recipe

Not chocolate syrup, but a light sauce made of cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and milk.  A real comfort food.  Click here for the recipe.

5. Chocolate Fettuccini Alfredo Recipe

Serve fettuccini with a crème anglaise or chocolate anglaise sauce, and white, milk or dark chocolate shavings. Click here for the recipe.

6. Chocolate Spaghetti with Whipped Cream, Sliced Strawberries, and Chocolate Nibs Recipe

From Emeril Lagasse, what could sound like kiddie fare becomes a sophisticated mesh of flavors with liqueur and cacao nibs. Click here for the recipe.

7. Orange Pasta Recipe

Spaghetti with a sauce made of orange marmalade, orange juice and Port. Sent by a reader who got it from a foodie discussion group, from a participant named Lisa Hutt. Thanks Lisa! Click here for the recipe.

8. Manicotti “Cannoli” Recipe

Cook manicotti according to package directions. Stuff with vanilla and chocolate cannoli creams, adding chocolate morsels and/or candied fruit to taste. Top with shaved white chocolate “cheese.”

9. Ravioli Dolci Recipe

If your Grandma was Italian, instead of noodle kugel you may have a recipe for ravioli dolci—“sweet” ravioli. A classic Neapolitan recipe stuffs the ravioli pockets with a mixture of apples, pears, raisins, pine nuts, grapes, squash, and orange zest. Other nonnas used sweetened chestnut purée.

If you like to make ravioli, you can try an American fusion with blueberry, cherry, apple, or whatever pie fillings you like—an interesting dish would be a mixture of different fruit flavors (in separate ravioli), topped with the mascarpone cream in the pumpkin ravioli recipe below.  A savory pumpkin ravioli is often available—why not try sweet pumpkin? Or, go for sweet cheese ravioli filled with sweetened mascarpone and your choice of dried cherries and/or nuts (try pecans or pistachios).

Holiday Flavors

10. Pumpkin Ravioli Recipe

Generally used as a savory dish, this sweet squash works beautifully as a dessert.  Try it during the festive fall and holiday seasons. Click here for the recipe.

11. Romanian Sweet Pasta Recipe

A baked noodle pudding with raisins, ground walnuts, and poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, and maple syrup.  Holiday spices, tasty all year-round. Click here for the recipe.

Back to Grandma

12. Sweet Ricotta and Fusilli Recipe

The Italian version of Grandma‘s noodle kugel, with curly fusilli instead of flat noodles.  Click here for the recipe.

13. Grandma’s Noodle Kugel Recipe

If you don’t have a recipe from your own grandma, click here for ours.

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