tiramisu

Probably the most popular Italian dessert today, it's the caffeine and sugar in tiramisù that promises to 'pick you up.' It's made of Savoiardi dipped in coffee (and usually rum or Marsala), layered with a whipped mixture of egg yolks and mascarpone cheese, and flavored with liquor (rum, brandy or Marsala) and cocoa.

As famous as it is, tiramisù of relatively recent and slightly controversial origin. In 1981 Giovanni Capnist wrote about it in Vin Veneto:

Born recently, less than two decades ago, in the city of Treviso is a dessert called Tiramesu [sic] which was made for the first time in the restaurant Alle Beccherie, by a pastry chef called Loly Linguanotto, the dessert and its name, tiramesu, which signifies its nutritious and restorative properties, became immediately popular and was copied with fidelity and variations not only in the restaurants of Treviso and the region but throughout Veneto and Italy.