Sicilian cassata cake grandma’s recipe, the recipe for ricotta cassata with almond paste. In our Italian blog, we have made many Sicilian desserts with ricotta, from baked Cassata to cannoli, passing through the ricotta Cassatelle to the minnuzze di Sant’Agata, but there are so many desserts with ricotta cream in Sicily and the most famous one is certainly the the Sicilian cassata from Palermo. Cassata from the Arabic “quas’at,” which means basin or the Latin “caseum” which means cheese, is a traditional Sicilian cake made with sheep’s ricotta, sponge cake, royal pasta and candied fruit. it’s, perhaps, the most famous dessert of our land and there are different variations depending on the province of production, but they all have ricotta, candied fruit and almond paste (pasta reale) in common, with more or less baroque decorations, but always elegant. Cassata is a very ancient preparation and in tradition it was made during Easter, rich and sumptuous to repay for Lenten fasts, but now it can be found in Sicilian pastry shops all year round. I advise you to try it, maybe the preparation will be a bit long, but in the end the result will repay you and you will truly receive everyone’s compliments! Before going to the kitchen, however, I want to add that in my recipe I used a almond paste, much cheaper than the pistachio paste, which is the basis of the original cassata recipe.
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Ingredients for the cassata cake
For the sponge cake
For the ricotta cream
For the covering
Tools
HOW TO MAKE SICILIAN CASSATA
To make the tradictional sicilian cassata, buy fresh sheep ricotta the day before preparing the dessert and leave it in the fridge to drain for at least twelve hours. The next day you can use it.
To make the sponge cake:
Whip the eggs with the sugar until you obtain a frothy mixture. Add the sifted flour.
Add the yeast and vanilla essence and mix.
Pour into a 26-28 cm baking tray covered with baking paper and bake at 180° (355° F) for about 25 minutes, do the toothpick test before taking the cake out of the oven.
To make the ricotta cream:
Mash the ricotta with a fork or, if you prefer a silky consistency, pass it through a sieve several times. Combine the sugar, vanilla essence, cinnamon and chocolate chips (according to tradition, candied fruit in small cubes would go, but cassata would be cloying for contemporary tastes, so the dark chocolate variant was born).
Mix well, but delicately and obtain a homogeneous mix..
Sprinkle the work surface generously with icing sugar and roll out the almond paste on it, try to roll out an intact and flawless sheet 3 mm (1/10 inches) thick, no more.
Sprinkle the surface with icing sugar, roll it on a rolling pin and delicately unroll it on the baking tray, covering it, ensuring that the part in contact with the baking tray is very sprinkled with sugar, otherwise you will not be able to unmold the cake
Model the almond paste on the baking tray and divide the sponge cake into three discs. Place the first disc on the bottom of the pan covered with almond paste, with the spongy part facing up and crust placed on the paste.
Cut the central disc in strips and cover the edges of the pan. Soak with a bath of liqueur (limoncello) diluted with water and fill the cake with the ricotta cream.
Level well and cover with the last disc of sponge cake. Spray with a little more liqueur, cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge for at least 6 hours.
I assembled the cassata the night before, so that the cake could take it’s time to compact.
After resting, turn the cake on the serving plate and prepare the frosting.
For the icing you can proceed in two ways:
-Prepare a homemade icing by quickly working the icing sugar with a whisk with very little water (300g (3/5 pounds) sugar and approximately 35g (1 oz) of water), until you obtain the right consistency, which allows the icing to cover the cake, without slipping away completely.
– Buy fondant in pastry shops or specific shops, and melt it gently on the stove with very little water.
In both cases, pour the covering onto the cake and work it quickly.
I sincerely tell you that to obtain a perfect and thin icing, it is better to use the fondant.
The frosting made with the fondant hardens quickly, the one with the sugar is a little slower. Once it hardens you can decorate it as desired with candied fruit.
The cassata is ready to be consumed, it can be stored in the fridge for a maximum of 48 hours.
Varied doses for servings