Baker Renato Poliafito Reinvents Your Favorite American Desserts

How do you want people to feel when they cook through the book?

I wanted the book to kind of be aspirational but also a little historical. I love to travel. This book is like an embodiment of who I am. I want someone to be transported [to Italy] when they look through it. It’s useful in the sense that they could use it for recipes, or they could just flip through it, read the head notes and look at the pictures. 

Can you share an early memory of falling in love with pastries?

My mom would make this olive oil cake, in the time when olive oil wasn’t as prevalent as it is now. In the ’70s and early ’80s, she would make a vegetable oil-based Bundt cake. She would add lemon zest or orange zest to give it kind of like a nice citrusy note. Some of my earliest memories were licking the bowl. I love the taste of the batter. When you’re tasting things like that as a child, they stick with you forever.

Your baking career is your “second act” after a successful career in advertising. What advice would you share with someone hoping to start a new hobby or career?

I’m kind of doing that again with pottery. I just started up. It was something I’ve done on and off throughout my life, but then I just decided a couple of years ago to really delve back into it. I think the older you get, the more focused you are and you’re less distracted. If you’re kind of going into a second act or a third act, do something that you truly love. You’ll be better at it if you like it a lot.

If you could plan an ideal getaway to Italy, what would be a couple of places on that itinerary?

If I were going to Italy, I would definitely go to Puglia — that’s the heel of the boot. It’s my favorite part of Italy. It’s beautiful. There’s slightly less traffic. A lot of the tourists there tend to be Italian. It’s not like Florence where you barely hear Italian, you just hear people speaking English. I love that. I think Naples is such a cool and electric city in Italy. The food is great. It buzzes with that same kind of energy that New York has. It feels like it’s always on.

How does your Italian heritage impact your day-to-day life?

Italy impacts my day-to-day because I was raised by Italian immigrant parents. A lot of my traits and habits mirror that of an Italian. My breakfast is usually a cappuccino or a cup of American coffee with a quick pastry or a quick, like, little sweet — I definitely don’t sit down and have huge American-style breakfasts. And when I cook, I usually default to pasta. It’s something that I, for whatever reason, know how to make inherently well.

You wrote in the book’s intro that, as the youngest of your siblings, you weren’t expected to speak Italian at home. Do you speak Italian fluently now?

Penguin Random House LLC

Bake With Renato

Poliafito shared three recipes from Dolci! American Baking With an Italian Accent for AARP members to try:

Coffee-Coffee Cake

This is a sweet, caffeine-fueled way to start the day.

Limoncello Pistachio Tart

With its sweet, tangy lemon filling and crunchy pistachios, this dessert will transport you to Italy’s Amalfi Coast.

Morning Gloria Cookies

These are a healthy(ish) riff on morning glory muffins, packed with hearty oats, fiber-packed shredded apples and carrots, and sweet golden raisins.

I feel like my Italian has actually gotten a little worse! But when I go to Italy, after I’m there for a few days, I pick it up again. It’s funny, here [in New York], I end up speaking Spanish more than I speak Italian just because of my staff.

What are a few important techniques for at-home bakers who want to brush up on their skills?

Read the recipe in its entirety. A lot of baking recipes require you to let something chill for four hours or rest overnight. Point number two: Have a scale and weigh everything. If the recipe is written correctly, it should work once you put everything together. Finally, gather your mise en place, which means to measure all your ingredients before you start. Those would be the top three.

Baking seems to have a lot of viral trends that get popular via social media. What do you think may be the next big thing?

I sense that bakeries that open now tend to be very geared towards lamination [folding butter into layers of dough]. It’s always a new form of croissants, and with social media, these trends happen at breakneck speed. The last one I saw was chocolate chip cookie dough baked inside a croissant. I’m just like, Oh, God, why? Personally, I like keeping things classic and, dare I say, a little old-fashioned. [Certain things are] old-fashioned because they’ve been around forever and probably will be around forever.