Pasta for Dessert I

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My painstaking preparation of homemade ricotta-filled raviolis in a honey-quince sweet white wine sauce was my first test of dessert pasta.

Pasta for dessert? Really Francois?

When I mention dessert pasta people never look tempted. They must think spaghetti bolognese with chocolate or meat lasagna with a side order of custard. But pasta is made from flour and eggs, the basis of Western pastries, so there is no reason why it shouldn't work. I decided to give it a try.

My first test is a Sardinian dessert - raviolis in a honey sauce. The recipe looked quite attractive until I tried to buy the pecorino fresco, a fresh sheep milk cheese. Apparently it is no longer fresco in December, although the recipe calls for fresh quince which you don't get in the spring either. A real culinary catch 22. I settled on ricotta di buffala.

Ricotta raviolis in honey quince sauce
4 eggs
400gr flour
200gr ricotta or pecorino fresco
salt and water to cook the raviolis
1 beautiful quince with no spots
1dl sweet white wine
50gr pale liquid honey (e.g. acacia)

First you peel, core and dice the quince in very small dices. Not a quick job, and you are one a clock before the quince becomes all brown.

In a small saucepan, mix the white wine with the honey and heat over a low flame. Add the quince and cook gently for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make 4 eggs of pasta (see my other pasta recipes). Pass through the pasta machine, turn 90°, fold, and pass again. Finish with the thinnest setting you can manage.

Lay a sheet of pasta on a cloth and put spoonfuls of plain pecorino fresco or ricotta at regular intervals.

Cut trough with a ravioli roller.

Heat olive oil in a skillet or deep frying machine and fry the raviolis over high heat in small batches until they are well colored.

Serve over the quince honey sauce with some fine sugar sprayed on top.

Although the dessert tastes good and is spectactular it is too much work. But bear with me I will be back with more on my hunt for good dessert pasta.