Sicilian · Dessert
Cassata Siciliana
- Advanced
- 75 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, toasted, nutty warmth throughout.
Ingredients
- 1kg fresh sheep's milk ricotta
- 350g caster sugar
- 100g dark chocolate, 70 percent, chopped small
- 400g marzipan (pasta reale), tinted green with pistachio
- 300g pan di Spagna, cut in 1cm sheets
- 80g candied pumpkin (zuccata), diced
- 50ml maraschino, let down with 50ml water
- 300g icing sugar
- 60ml water, for the glaze
- candied orange, citron and cherries, to decorate
The skills inside
Straining & passing through a sieveChilling to firm: the fridge as binderFolding: keeping the air inIcing & frosting
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Drain the ricotta in a cloth in the fridge for 12 hours, then push it through a fine sieve twice until it is smooth with no grain to it. 600 min
- Beat in the caster sugar and leave it 1 hour, then rub a little between finger and thumb: if you feel any grit, wait longer. 60 min
- Fold in the chocolate and zuccata, keeping the cream stiff enough to hold a soft peak.
- Line a sloping 24cm tin with film, press cold marzipan strips 8mm thick around the sides and line the base with pan di Spagna brushed with the diluted maraschino.
- Fill with the ricotta cream, level it, cap with more sponge and chill at least 6 hours, until the surface is firm under a fingertip. 360 min
- Turn it out, warm the icing sugar with the water to 40C (105F) until it pours like thick cream, coat the cassata in one unbroken pass and decorate before the glaze skins over.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Icing & frosting 17 recipes
- The temperatures were chosen, not defaulted: the bake fully cool where the finish is meant to sit on top of it, or both deliberately warm where the method wants the two to fuse, and the proof either way is a finish that stayed where it was put.
- Smooth on the tongue: no grit of undissolved sugar and no lumps of anything that was never fully worked in.
- The consistency matches the job: it spreads or pours the way the method intends, then holds the edge, swirl, or drip it was given.
- The surface underneath is intact: covered rather than scrubbed, with no crumbs dragged through the finish and no torn patches showing.
- By serving it has settled into the finish the method wants (matte, glossy, or soft) and a cut comes away clean rather than pulling the top off with it.
Where it goes wrong A finish meant to sit on top went on while the bake was still warm. The layer that touched first melted, slid, and soaked in; what is left sets greasy and streaked, and no amount of chilling afterwards puts that finish back.
Folding: keeping the air in 34 recipes
- The air was actually built first and it shows: whatever was creamed or whipped has changed colour and grown in volume, pale and light rather than dense.
- The two mixtures were brought closer before being combined: a little of the light one worked into the heavy one first, so the rest is not beaten flat trying to move it.
- Folded and not stirred: a broad implement down through the middle, across the base, up and over, with the bowl turned between strokes.
- Stopped the moment the streaks disappear. It is still visibly aerated and holds its shape briefly when the spoon lifts away.
- Into the tin and into the oven straight away: a batter left standing on the bench gives back the air it was built for.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred until it looked perfectly smooth. Every stroke past the point where the streaks vanish knocks out air that cannot be put back, so the bake comes out dense and short of the tin, and often wet through the middle where there was no structure to hold it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Banyuls or Ruby Port
- Also Right
- PX Sherry
- From the Taps
- Imperial stout
- Zero-Proof
- Espresso
Chocolate wants fortified sweetness or roast-bitter contrast: the wine must out-sweet the plate, or oppose it entirely.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.