Affogato

A scoop of fior di latte or vanilla gelato in a small glass, and a freshly pulled shot of hot espresso poured over it at the table: the affogato al caffè is Italy's shortest dessert, and the whole dish happens in the thirty seconds before the gelato melts. The name means drowned. It belongs to the bar and the gelateria rather than to any region, and it is young by Italian standards, a product of the espresso machine and the domestic freezer rather than of a grandmother; printed references begin in the mid-twentieth century. Variations exist, a splash of amaretto or Frangelico, a spoon of whipped cream, a different gelato, but the canonical version has two components and no garnish, and most of what can go wrong goes wrong with one of the two.