How to make La Cassata Siciliana

Be brave. La Cassata Siciliana is like a journey through alien territory to which you have decided to stake a claim. Once:

And then once more —

The “cassata” you have grown up with is a layered pink-green-white ice cream cake sold by Indian ice creameries, or “Neapolitan” ice cream. Heavily sweet and artificially flavored, it is only faintly cognizant of its Italian (and then Arab) origins. There are other versions, too, sponge-ricotta-fruit combinations, but you’ve only heard of these, never tasted. What you’ve tasted, you’ve never liked–but your beloved swears it can be divine.

You’re torn. What is the truth of this thing? Is it an ice cream really? You set out to discover. You’ve lived by the dictum “authenticity be damned,” and yet here you are.

Clifford Wright has this to say in his Cucina Paradiso: the heavenly foods of Sicily [NY: Simon and Schuster, 1992]:

“Cassata is another famous Sicilian cake with an Arab heritage. “Cassata” comes from the Arabic word qa’sat, a kind of large baking pan. Sicilian folklore dates cassata to the fourteenth century. But the very first mention of it is in the Paris manuscript of the Riyad an-Nufus, a tenth-century chronicle attributed to al-Maliki. He reports that Abu al-Fadl, an orthodox jurist from the Aghlabid capital in Tunisia, refused to eat a sweet cake called a ka’k because it was made with sugar from Sicily, then ruled by unorthodox Shiites.

Over the centuries, cassata became a richly decorated cake of aristocratic proportions. Pan di Spagna (a sponge cake) is sprinkled with sweet liqueur and filled with a mixture of ricotta, sugar, cinnamon, candied fruit, and chocolate. The cake is covered with a sugar icing or marzipan, and baroque decorations are added, including candied fruits, such as pears and cherries, and slices of citron twisted into bows.” [Wright 1992: 227]

That “cassata” is a dessert tied to Palermo and Messina in Sicily seems incontrovertible. But here commences the debate. What’s more definitive of cassata, the sugar–or the cheese? Wright emphasizes sweetness and insists that Latin etymologies tying cassata to to cheese are tenuous:

“The Latin derivation is not likely for two reasons. First, cassata is, more than anything, born of a fascination with sugar, not cheese, and sugar was not cultivated in Sicily during the Roman era. It was only when the Arabs brought sugar to Sicily and an energetic sugar industry took root in the tenth century that sweet inventions using this product appeared. Second, the proposed derivation of cassata from the Latin word for cheese, caseus, doesn’t make sense because the Sicilian word for “cheese,” which does derive from the Latin word, is casu, not cassu. The more likely derivation proposed is from the word for the baking tray or earthenware bowl the primitive cassata was cooked in, the Arabic  quas’at [or qas’at].”

He continues with a commentary on the permeation of “vestigial Arabisms” into neo-Latin languages, particularly Iberian and Italian dialects, especially where it concerned sweets:

“For example, there are cubbàita, an almond nougat made with honey and sesame, from the Arabic qubbayta, a kind of dried confection made with raisin juice and other ingredients, and the famous Sicilian sfinci, a beignet made of ricotta, associated with the festival of St. Joseph, derived from the Arabic isfanj, a yeast dough fritter eaten with honey. Sfinci is mentioned in Palermo in 1330 where it is sold by the sfingiari. It is still made to this day in both Sicily and Tunisia. It seems quite possible that cassata was part of this Arab-influenced repertoire of Sicilian cooks.”

Such evidence notwithstanding, John Dickie differs, emphatically, by elevating the role of cheese: the cake has nothing to do with the Arabs, but is a “caseata” or “cheese concoction.” His 2007 Delizia! The epic history of the Italians and their food is a text concerned primarily with debunking culinary myths, whether the romance of the rustic, farm-fresh nature of Italian cuisine, the existence of anything that can really be called “Italian food”–or the opposite notion that Italy is a “collection of ancient and unconnected micro-cuisines.” If he insists on any single truth, it is that of regionalism.

“when Italians eat their own food there is always an extra ingredient in it that is imperceptible to outsiders. Corny as it may sound, that ingredient is local pride. Many Italians are more strongly attached to the town of their birth than they are to their country. They are bolognesi, catanesi, or torinesi first, italiani second. Food may be the most evocative expression of that historically rooted sense of belonging.”

And so we have a proliferation of local, distinctive typical foods: “Tipicita, ‘typicality,’ is the Italian word that describes the magical aura a food acquires when local identity is invested in it… So the Italian gastronomic landscape abounds with food traditions–some of them real, some exaggerated, and some entirely fanciful.”

[Aside: Replace “Italiani” with “Indian” and you have much the same story in the subcontinent–another land of dizzying gastronomic diversities, strong regionalisms, and claims to the authentic and typical.]

Cassata, Dickie avers, falls somewhere between the last two categories. It wasn’t a dessert till the 1600s, it didn’t assume its present form till the 18th century, and its distinctive “garish” “outlandish” coloration and candied decorations came even later, a baroque addition.

Dickey finds Sicily at the confluence of Greek, Roman, Saracen, Norman, Hohenstaufen, Anjou, Bourbon, and Arab influences, a place to experience the “dizzying variety in Italian food”–and to remember that claims to authenticity are invariably wrested from just such diversity.  Dickie’s truth #2: all traditions are invented, and La Cassata Siciliana is no exception. It is a prime example of “an invented tradition based on the claim that its roots lie in the Muslim middle-ages.”

So there.

Then there is this reading, also from Wright: “in both Pasqualino’s eighteenth-century Sicilian-Italian dictionary and Mortillaro’s nineteenth-century Sicilian-Italian dictionary the definition of cassata also means, besides a kind of cheese cake, a sweet-box where sweets are kept, derived from casseta a kind of small box.”

A sweet box in which sweets are kept? Hell yeah. It’s the definition you like best, scholars be damned–though your version will try to balance the soft sourness of ricotta with the oversweetness of marzipan and so many intense little bits of candied sweetness.

You pause. Breathe deeply. And begin.

The ingredient list

For a 9″ cassata, you’ll need:

• For the Genoise/ pan de Spagna/ sponge:
  • 2/3 cups sugar, 
  • 6 eggs, and 
  • 1 teaspoon orange zest,
  • 1 heaped cup all-purpose flour
• For the Marzipan:
  • 1/2 cup almonds,
  • 1/2 cup pistachios,
  • 3/4 cup powdered/confectioners sugar,
  • the separated white of 1 small egg,
  • a few drops green food coloring (optional)
• For the filling
  • 1lb ricotta (I used a little more)
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon,
  • 1/2 cup sugar, and
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1/2-3/4 cup chopped assorted candied fruit

STEP ONE: The candied fruit. Orange peel, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, beets.

You can buy these of course, or you can put the effort into making them. Easy, really, and quite meditative, if you take them one at a time, in slow, measured fashion.

Cut orange peels into thin strips. Cover with cool water, bring to a boil and discard the water. Do this twice–no cheating now–as it helps to mute the bitterness.

Then and only then combine 2 cups sugar with 1 cup water. Dissolve over a low-medium flame. Add the orange peels and allow to simmer for 45 minutes. When the sugar looks like it has dried, drain out what syrup remains (not more than a few teaspoons worth; see note below), allow the orange strips to dry, and store in a tightly covered container. [See a full candying orange recipe here or to make a zucchini walnut tea cake with this very orange peel here]

Note: If you’re using dried apricots, you could well just mince these and toss in the leftover syrup. If not, then save the syrup anyway for use in your next glass of lemonade or lemon soda.

To candy zucchini and carrots: Slice the zucchini into thin strips, a little thicker than paper-thin; the carrot into thick-ish rounds. Float them in another 2 cups sugar-to-1 cup water solution, and simmer until they are looking a bit shriveled and translucent in parts. Lift out, drain, allow the strips to dry, and save the sugar syrup as above.

Beets: You could get creative with these and cut them into slightly thick-ish slices and then shapes–stars, triangles, circles, squares. Sugar solution proportions are the same. Whatever you do, make sure you simmer these separately, as beet bleeds red! After about 45 mins, drain, dry, save syrup for soda.

Cherry tomatoes: The sugar solution is the same. Depending on how many tomatoes you have to candy, you’ll need to make another batch, or just use a part of the solution made for the zucchinis and carrots to cover a few tomatoes and simmer. Keep them in a single layer; do not pile them into a pot. Remember that tomatoes have a whole lot more water in them than carrots, zucchinis, or orange peels–so may take longer even in a single batch. Watch for the sugar syrup to start drying a little, then follow the same steps as above (drain, dry, save syrup for soda).

STEP TWO: Prepare the genoise (pan de Spagna, sponge)

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C. Grease and flour a 9″ round or square baking pan.

Combine: 2/3 cups sugar, 6 eggs, and 1 teaspoon orange zest in a large bowl and beat on high speed until the eggs double in volume and turn pale yellow (about 5 minutes).

Gently fold in 1 slightly heaped cup flour.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden and springy. Allow to cool, and cut into strips.

STEP THREE: The marzipan

While your genoise is baking, prep your pie dish: line with plastic wrap [see the note below], doing a criss-cross with two pieces if you have to to cover the whole base and sides. Set aside.

Next, combine 1/2 cup almonds with a 1/2 cup pistachios in the jar of a food processor. Pulse until coarsely ground.

Add 3/4 cup powdered/confectioners sugar, and pulse again until finely ground.

With the processor still running, pour in the white of 1 small egg–just enough to gather the powder into a dough. If you like here you can add a drop or two of green food coloring, to make your marzipan more festive or garish as you prefer 🙂

Turn out onto a surface dusted liberally with confectioners sugar, and roll into a round about 1/4″ thick. With a sharp knife, cut the marzipan into strips that are a bit wider than the depth of your pie dish.

Place the strips on the sides of the pie dish, overlapping and pressing the strips together so that you have one continuous ring. You will want a bit of the marzipan to sit on the base of the dish. Trim any excess and set aside.

Note on plastic wrap use: I’ve not purchased plastic wrap in years. Any large enough plastic bag that can be cut open works, and you can well wash this and store for the next cake, once this is done.

STEP FOUR: The ricotta

Whip together 1lb ricotta (I used a little more) with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

Mince a handful of your candied orange peel, plus any other candied fruit you feel like adding–apricots, cherries, and the Indian “tutti frutti” work well. Mix into the ricotta.

STEP FIVE: The assembly

Fill the base of your marzipan-lined pie dish with a single layer of genoise strips. Drizzle with 3-4 teaspoons of Grand Marnier, Cointreau, or other orange flavored liqueur.

Follow with the ricotta filling, and then top with the remaining genoise strips. Drizzle again with 4-5 teaspoons of orange liqueur.

Cover the pie dish with more plastic wrap, and leave the cake to chill for a minimum of 2 hours.

STEP SIX: The glaze

Prepare your glaze: Place 1 cup of confectioners sugar in a bowl. Add lemon juice a teaspoon at a time, just until you get a thick but pourable glaze.

Invert the cake onto a serving dish gently, pulling at the plastic wrap on the sides to loosen and release from the pie dish. Once it’s out, peel away the plastic wrap. Take a moment to enjoy the little round box which holds already such sweets. And you’re about to place more on top.

Pour the glaze on top of the cake, taking care (if you wish) to have it cover only the exposed genoise, and not the marzipan sides.

The first time I made this, I let the glaze go over the whole cake.

The second time I made this, I kept the glaze to the center, and I rather preferred that.

STEP SEVEN: The decoration

Decorate with candied zucchini, carrots, beets, orange peel, tomato, and (if you have it and you wish) martorana fruit (marzipan dyed and shaped into little-wee fruit shapes).

Refrigerate again, 2 hours or overnight. If your dish will fit in a freezer, you could also freeze for a few hours for a more ice-cream cake like experience. But we had no problem consuming the cassata siciliana straight out of the fridge.

Befana, the kitchen witch, wishes you happy holidays and good company in your kitchen always!