Simplicity at its finest, this softly set pudding takes almost no effort to make, yet is nothing short of amazing! Even though panna cotta (lit. cooked cream) wasn't mentioned in Italian cookbooks until the 1960s, today it is considered a traditional Piedmontese dessert, and the original recipe calls for only whole cream, sugar, vanilla, and gelatin.

When made to perfection and properly chilled, panna cotta is silky smooth, deliciously creamy, and has a gentle wobble to it. For a slightly lighter version of this scrumptious dessert, use half-and-half instead of heavy cream, or simply dilute heavy cream with milk. 

The Italian word budino refers to a range of sweet and savory dishes that come in a number of different forms, shapes, and flavors. There are three main types of budino: crème caramel made with cold ingredients and cooked in a mold in a bain-marie; crème anglaise made by cooking the ingredients in hot milk and transferring them into a mold; and the savory Italian flan variety.

Even though the final result of these processes are all quite similar, it is difficult to nail down what a true budino is. Most varieties, excluding the savory type, are made with a base of eggs, milk, and sugar, yet some variations might also use rice or ricotta to form the foundation of a budino. 

Often prepared by grandmas throughout Italy on Sundays and holidays, budino di riso is a sweet Italian rice pudding. In its most basic form, the dessert is made with a creamy combination of rice, eggs, butter, and milk flavored with vanilla, lemon, or cinnamon.

Modern versions are sometimes made with shortcrust pastry that acts as a bed for the rice pudding, and the whole concoction is then sprinkled with icing sugar. It is recommended to use either arborio or carnaroli rice because of the starch which gives the pudding a smooth and creamy texture.

Hailing from the time when animals were butchered in a true snout-to-tail culinary fashion without a morsel going to waste, sanguinaccio emerged as a special dessert making use of those nasty but tasty bits: this Italian sweet pudding is made from fresh pork blood, milk custard, and melted bittersweet dark chocolate.

For a richer version, the pudding is often flavored with cinnamon and cloves or lemon zest, and sometimes studded with raisins, toasted almonds, pine nuts, and candied fruit, whereas in some regions it is cooked with the addition of rice. In Naples and the rest of southern Italy, sanguinaccio is traditionally prepared during the Carnival season, and enjoyed with crispy fried ribbons of pastry called chiacchiere, an Italian version of angel wings, but it can also be served with cookies to dip, either the hard, crunchy biscotti or the tender Italian ladyfingers.

Miascia is an ancient cucina povera dessert originating from the area of Lago di Como. This little known staple of cucina povera has no fixed ingredients, but it's usually made with a combination of day-old or stale bread (pan poss in local dialect), butter, milk, eggs, lemon zest, apples, pears, sultanas, sugar, flour, polenta flour, and rosemary.

The bread is cut into cubes and soaked in milk, then mixed with the eggs, lemon zest, apple and pear slices, sugar, sultanas, and both types of flour. Once baked, the cake is often sprinkled with chopped rosemary, giving miascia its unique flavor.

In the past, miascia was served on special occasions, but nowadays it is often enjoyed as a simple breakfast. 

Gelo di melone is a traditional Sicilian dessert that most usually consists of watermelon juice, sugar, starch, candied fruit, nuts, and cinnamon. The result is a flavorful watermelon jelly pudding that is typically prepared for Ferragosto (15 August, a popular Italian holiday) and on 15 July in Palermo to honor the city's saint, Rosalia.

Quite often, the dessert is decorated with chocolate chips which resemble (and represent) watermelon seeds. It is recommended to serve gelo di melone in cups, when fully chilled.