Personal, full of history and far more spice than you’d imagine, blogger-turned-recipe-book-author Skye McAlpine introduces Prudence Wade to her Venetian table.

Many of us claim Italian to be our favourite cuisine - and what’s not to like, with all the pasta and red wine? However, this is a slightly one-note view of the country’s food. London-born Skye McAlpine grew up in Venice, and is on a mission to introduce people to true Venetian cooking, in all its variety-filled glory.

Although she’s not a professionally trained chef, McAlpine’s recipes have won huge popularity as lovingly-formed slices of Italian life.

Her food journey started with a blog, From My Dining Table, which has now been transformed into a new cookbook, called A Table In Venice.

McAlpine is obsessed with poring over cookbooks like they were novels, but it was only when she was doing her PhD that she started writing about food herself.

“I really enjoyed my PhD in 17th and 18th century English translations of Latin love poetry, but it was a real conversation killer at dinner parties,” she says with a giggle. “What was so lovely about writing about food is that it’s a fantastic way to connect with pretty much everyone, because everyone eats.”

This “personal connection” is why McAlpine first started her blog back in 2014, and her warm writing, as well as her recipes, has won a legion of fans.

Few things could be more personal than McAlpine’s recipes. She and her husband Anthony, and their toddler son Aeneas, now split their time between London, where McAlpine was born, and Venice where she grew up.

She does all her own food photography too - but this, she admits, has been a learning curve. “When I started the blog, it was so frustrating because food looked really nice on the table, but it didn’t look like that in the picture,” she recalls.

Ever the student, McAlpine swotted up on food photography and styling and invested in a decent camera. What makes her images even more endearing is that all the photography is done in her Venetian kitchen, which naturally has much more character than a blank studio.

“Shooting the book myself feels like a way of telling my story more personally,” McAlpine explains. “It’s definitely not perfect, but it feels very honest, and it’s very me.”

Using her own kitchen adds to the homely, welcoming feel of the book - and indeed her whole approach to food - too. “It’s a big rambling house, and it’s very Italian of us to have three generations living there at one time,” McAlpine adds of the family’s Italian home.

Perhaps unsurprisingly from someone who did a PhD in Latin love poetry, McAlpine is preoccupied with the history of Italian food - something which is sharpened by the surroundings of Venice.

“Because it’s such a crumbling and old city, it does encourage you to focus on the history,” she says. “If you love history and stories like I do, Venice is like a massive toy box full of wonders to play with.”

This feeds into the recipes that she has created, such as her favourite breakfast of kiefer - almond paste croissants that became part of Venetian cuisine during the early 19th century Austrian occupation.

So what sets Venetian cuisine apart from other areas in Italy? “Italian food is usually very fresh and simple flavours, so what’s most interesting about Venetian food is its unusual use of spices,” McAlpine explains.

“Because of Venice’s history as the top of the spice route and a melting pot of cultures, there is a lot of spice - cardamom, cinnamon, pink peppercorns, bay leaves and saffron - all these flavours run through otherwise quite plain and simple dishes, which I think is really nice.”

Having roots in two different countries has given McAlpine a fresh take on Venetian cuisine. “If you grow up in Italy, you have a very strong sense that there is a right and a wrong way to eat things. Whereas Anglo-Saxon culture is much more adventurous, and we get more excited by fusion and blurring the lines and exciting new ways of using things,” she says.

  • A Table In Venice: Recipes From My Home by Skye McAlpine, is published by Bloomsbury, priced £26.

This means that while McAlpine is strictly Italian in some senses (you won’t in a million years find her eating pasta with chicken), she’s more open to experimentation in others - she tells a hilarious story of a fruit seller’s horror when he found out she was making a distinctly untraditional apple, rose and thyme tart.

“That is the weird thing when you come from one place and live in another - I’m not really British, I’m not really Italian,” she says. “I’ve never known any different because I grew up that way, but I think it is nice to have multiple cultures, so I get to pick and choose.”

As for her advice to anyone wanting to dip their toe in Venetian cooking: “Start with what you like,” she says simply. “I think that’s best way to get excited, because we all have different tastes.

“Because I’m a completely self-taught home cook, and these are recipes I cook at home, they’re all incredibly simple and quite intuitive,” McAlpine adds. “Whatever takes your fancy, really start with that with the confidence of knowing that it is easy to do, because I can do it.”

Available now.

Zabaione and meringue semifreddo Ingredients: (Serves 10-12)

1/2 lemon 6 large egg whites 300g caster sugar For the zabaione: 6 large egg yolks 100g caster sugar 70ml Marsala 300ml whipping cream Method: 1. Make the meringue layers first. Heat the oven to 140°C/Gas Mark 1. Line three large baking trays with baking parchment and draw a 24cm circle on each piece of paper. Turn the paper over so you can still see the lines and use them as guides.

2. Rub a large bowl down with the lemon half to cut through any grease. Put the egg whites into the bowl and, using a handheld electric mixer, beat on a low-medium speed until the whites begin to froth. Increase the speed to high and add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until the whites become glossy and form stiff peaks. Spoon the meringue onto the baking parchment and spread it out evenly within the circles.

3. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes, then switch off the oven and leave the meringues in there, without opening the door, for an hour longer, until the oven has cooled. Take the meringues out of the oven and leave them to cool on the trays.

4. Now make the zabaione cream filling. Put the egg yolks and sugar into a heatproof bowl and whisk with a handheld electric mixer for two to three minutes, until light and fluffy. As the mixture begins to froth up, set the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the water isn’t touching the base of the bowl. Keep whisking until the mixture is thick enough for a trail to stay on the surface when drizzled from the whisk. Slowly pour in the Marsala, whisking all the while. This should take three to five minutes, and as you add the liquid, the zabaione will double in size and thicken. Remove the bowl from the heat and let the zabaione cool to room temperature, whisking occasionally to prevent a skin forming.

5. In a separate bowl, beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold it into the cooled zabaione. To assemble the semifreddo, place one of the meringue layers on a serving plate, and spread half the zabaione cream over it. Top with a second layer of meringue, then the rest of the zabaione cream, and finish with the final layer of meringue. Freeze for three to four hours, or longer if you like, until set. Slice like a cake to serve.

Almond paste croissants Ingredients: (Makes 10)

2 x 320g ready-rolled puff pastry sheets 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten 30g flaked almonds 2tbsp icing sugar For the filling: 90g ground almonds 70g caster sugar 1.5tsp apricot jam A pinch of salt 1 large egg white, lightly beaten with a fork Method: 1. Heat the oven to 220 C/Gas Mark 7. To make the filling, put the ground almonds, sugar, jam and salt in a bowl and mix well. Add the egg white and stir until you have a thick paste, rather like marzipan.

2. Lay out the puff pastry sheets on a work surface and cut out five triangles from each one, 12-14cm wide at the base and 24cm long on the sides. Spoon a teaspoon of almond paste on to the base of each triangle, centred and about two-fingers’ width away from the edge. Resist the urge to overfill here: you really just need a teaspoon, or the filling will spill out in the oven. Fold the bottom edge of the triangle over the filling, trying to tuck it under, and roll the pastry up as tightly as you can. Gently fold the tips under into the horns of a croissant, pinching where needed to seal. Repeat this with the remaining pastry triangles, then arrange them on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment.

3. Brush the croissants with the beaten egg yolk to glaze, then sprinkle liberally with the flaked almonds. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden all over. Remove the tray from the oven and sift the icing sugar generously over the piping-hot croissants, so that some of it melts into them. Let them cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack. Eat warm or cold.