Pesche di Prato, or Prato peaches are not a fruit, as the name might suggest. They are a typical dessert from the city of Prato and have recently become one of the city’s attractions, thanks to pastry chef Paolo Sacchetti. The first historical account written about this dessert is from 1861 when the innkeeper at the Locanda Contrucci, located on the square in front of the Duomo di Prato, served a menu dedicated to the recipes of the Italian peninsula during the celebration of the Unification of Italy. This was the dessert, and it was dubbed Pesche di Prato.
The dessert is seemingly simple, made of two semi-circles of brioche dough soaked in a bath of Alchermes liqueur, covered with sugar and filled with pastry cream that spills out the sides to stick the two halves together. One third dough, one third liqueur bath, one third cream; only the best ingredients, for a perfect result. This is a traditional dessert –sweet, soft and crunchy on the surface, but never cloying because of the liqueur. Every bite is interesting because of the different textures. In the 1950s and 1960s, with the economic boom and the Sunday routine of bringing out a tray of pastries, these Pesche had their moment of glory, soon after to be nearly forgotten. Today they are back in vogue, so much so that the Region of Tuscany included them in the list of traditional food products (PAT, prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali) for the provinces of Florence and Prato. The credit is due, above all, to a pastry chef who is not even from Prato, but from Florence. In his pastry shop he devotes himself to what’s right and good, without compromise.
The rebirth of the little peaches
In 1979, Paolo Sacchetti opened the pastry shop Nuovo Mondo in Prato with his wife Edi. He was an outsider with an obsession for quality and he brought the little peaches back to the limelight. “Everything started with Dolcemente Prato, the first national pastry show, in 2003, which drew Italian TV as well as English and Japanese. I was one of the organizers and had brought my little peaches. No one in the city was making them anymore… People were intrigued because they were a typical dessert, and then in 2006, with the book Le Pesche di Prato, their fame spread even more. All the restaurants and trattorias started buying them from me, the other pastry shops started making them, trying to follow the same recipe, and I even taught fellow chefs to make them, even those of Sal di Riso’s caliber.”
The secret of success
How do you explain this renewed success of the Pesche di Prato? Master pastry chef Sacchetti replies, “Because they are a classic Italian dessert. It’s like tiramisù, something genetic in our hearts, the alcohol adds freshness and makes you want to eat them again and again. My secret is that I make them well-balanced, with good Alchermes, the best ingredients, and I balance everything. Tiramisù is made with one third savoiardi, one third soaking liquid and one third mascarpone. Today they tell us that you need the crunchy part, the acidity… Actually, you don’t really need these, you need what you make to be good and the goodness lies in the tradition, because it speaks to us instinctively.”
He has prepared them alongside Massimo Bottura, he has taught how to make them at AMPI, the Academy of Italian Master Pastry Chefs (of which he has been vice-president since 2012), he has served them at events, trade shows, dinners and conferences. He has researched the recipe, learned their chemistry and physics, and discovered the magic formula to make them perfect. They reawaken your senses, even in people who don’t have a passion for sweets, they explode in your mouth, leaving that sweet aftertaste of spices and bitterness. It makes no sense to provide the recipe; there are some things that you just can’t make at home, that should be eaten at the place where someone has spent years working to find the magic formula for making them. So are you ready for a trip to Prato?
Photos by Daniele Mari