This recipe is built around very ripe banana, browned butter and ribbons of chocolate hazelnut spread, keeping the loaf moist with distinct Nutella swirls.

Crème Caramel, the silky baked custard turned out under its own caramel sauce Crème caramel is a custard baked in a mould lined with caramel, chilled hard, then turned out so the caramel arrives as its own sauce. The name and the method are French, but Italy took it in so completely that the stampino is ordinary kitchen equipment and every trattoria trolley carries one. Yield: 6 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Bake: 50 minutes. Chill: 12 hours. Total: about 13 hours. Difficulty:

Éclair al Cioccolato Fondente e Crema Pasticcera (Italian Chocolate Éclairs with Vanilla Pastry Cream) The eclair is a French pastry with an Italian passport, and Italian pasticceria has been printing its own edition of it for well over a century. In an Italian bar it sits next to the bigne and the cannoncino, filled with crema pasticcera rather than the French version of the same cream, and glazed in dark chocolate rather than coffee fondant. This recipe is built around the