Italian Baked Peaches, Pesche Ripiene alla Piemontese

Traditional Piedmontese baked peaches (Pesche Ripiene) stuffed with crunchy amaretti cookies and dark chocolate. A simple, easy and good Italian summer dessert that's solid served warm with some vanilla gelato.

Pesche Ripiene are a traditional dessert from Piedmont (Piemonte) a region in the north of Italy. Traditionally, they're made with cocoa powder, although nowadays it's common to use either cocoa powder or dark chocolate.

We love this dessert and have tested many variations (see our notes below). This is our favourite version using chopped dark chocolate. It's such a simple summer dessert, and it's so easy to prep.

The peaches are best served warm alongside some fresh cream or cold vanilla gelato. Enjoy!

Ingredient notes

• Peaches: make sure your peaches are ripe, so they are easy to hollow out. We've always used yellow flesh peaches for this recipe, but we're sure white flesh peaches will also work. Yellow flesh nectarines are a good alternative too. If you go with freestone peaches, you'll be able to remove the stone easily.
• Amaretti cookies/biscuits: there are two types of amaretti cookies: soft or crunchy. You want to use crunchy amaretti cookies for this so they can be crushed into crumbs.
• Dark chocolate: we recommend using a good quality dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa if possible.
• Sugar: We only use 1 tablespoon of sugar as we find peaches and amaretti add enough sweetness, but you can add more to taste before stuffing the peaches.

Our top testing notes for making Italian baked peaches

Leave a good border: leave around 1cm (a little more than 1/4 inch) border around the peach so it still stands firm. If you hollow out too much, the filling oozes out. The dish will still be good, but it's not so great for presentation.

Dark chocolate vs cocoa powder: you can replace the dark chocolate with two tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder. We've tested both ways, and although they are both good, the dark chocolate gives a more intense, rich and indulgent flavour, which we love.

Add liqueur: quite often liqueur is added to Piemontese stuffed peaches, which is good. We find 1 tablespoon is enough; you could add Amaretto, Marsala, brandy or even Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur).

More easy Italian desserts to try

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Strawberry Semifreddo with Strawberry Sauce

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Ricotta al Caffè

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Pistachio Affogato

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Torta Caprese Bianca (Lemon Caprese Cake)

Ingredients

Makes 8 servings

• 4 ripe peaches (yellow flesh (around 740g))
• 3.5 oz (100g) crunchy amaretti cookies (crushed (about 14 cookies))
• 3 oz (85g) 70% dark chocolate (finely chopped)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15g) unsalted butter (plus extra for greasing)
• pinch of salt ((optional))

Equipment

• Sandwich bag
• Rolling pin (for crushing the cookies)
• Baking dish

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180℃/350℉ fan or 200℃/400℉ static. Grease your baking dish with butter. Crush your amaretti cookies into crumbs using a sandwich bag and rolling pin. Finely chop your dark chocolate.

2. Cut the peaches in half and carefully remove the stone. Using a small spoon, remove some of the peach flesh, leaving a border around the edge (about 1cm/ just over 1/4 inch). Place the peaches in your baking dish.

3. Put the peach flesh in a bowl and use a potato masher or fork to mash it into a pulp. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and mix until combined.

4. Add the crushed amaretti cookies and chopped dark chocolate and mix until everything is well combined.

5. Spoon the filling into the peaches, then dot each peach with a small piece of butter. We like to add a tiny pinch of salt to each, but that's optional.

6. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the peaches are tender and the chocolate has melted. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.

Kitchen notes

• Variation you can replace the dark chocolate with 1-2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder.
• Storage the peaches are best served warm straight after baking. They soften a lot as they are left due to all the peach juices.
• Prep in advance you can prep and fill the peaches, then store them in the fridge for 1-2 days until you are ready to bake.