Tag: Whipped ricotta

CASSATA DECONSTRUCTED – a postmodernist take on Sicilian Cassata

Deconstructed Cassata.

Cassata Deconstructed is my postmodernist take on the Iconic Siciliandessert – Cassata.

But can there be such a thing? Probably not in Sicily.

While I strive for precision and authenticity, I occasionally employ a shortcut  and this one has proven effective. This dessert, that I have since refined, I have made multiple times.

ONE CANNOT ALWAYS BE AUTHENTIC

I always want to be Authentic.

When my children were young they used to refer to me as the Food Police; everything had to be just right and particularly when we went to a restaurant I often seemed to find fault.  .This is not the case in my later years!

But the often seen as the less important side of authenticity is that making things that are not particularly “authentic” can actually be a lot of fun. 

CASSATA DECONSTRUCTED 

As you will see I have remained faithful to Traditional Sicilian Ingredients and Ingredients that I have used when making Cassata.

I used sponge fingers, dipped in Cointreau. These formed the casing of the sweet – the  bottom and top layers.

In between I used a sweet ricotta filling, in fact it a similar ricotta filling that I use when making a cassata.

I then covered the top layer of sponge fingers with a whipped cream with a little ricotta, topped it with summer strawberries and leaves made from marzipan.

The result is very much like a summer cassata and very suitable for the Christmas season, or Easter, or anytime.

REFLECTION ON MY PROCESS

The flavours and process of dipping sponge fingers or sponge cake in liqueur and layering with a cream filling are very much Italian. After all, I have been making cassata, zuppa inglese and tiramisu for years.

I have maintained the Italian colours. The only problem is what do I call this dessert?

The marzipan can be made days beforehand, wrapped in cling wrap and left in the fridge. The leaves can also be made beforehand and placed in a sealed container with baking paper in between each leaf.

This dessert fed 6-8 people – the strawberries were huge and because of their large size they give a wrong sense of scale.

CASSATA DECONSTRUCTED RECIPE

INGREDIENTS
500 g fresh ricotta,
100 g caster sugar,
1 cup Cointreau or to taste
50g of chopped blanched almonds
vanilla concentrate
some orange and citron peel previously soaked in Cointreau for at least 1 hour
small pieces of dark chocolate
cream to cover the dessert, add as much as you like

PROCESSES
Arrange sponge biscuits in a square container lined with cling wrap. Sprinkle them with orange flavoured liqueur.
Beat 450g ricotta with a dash of cream, sugar and vanilla. The mixture should be creamy but stiff.
Fold in nuts, chocolate, and drained peel. Reserve the Cointreau.
Place this on the layer of sponge fingers and finish off with a top layer which you have sprinkled with more Cointreau – I used what I drained off the peel.
Leave it for at least 5 hours.
Close to serving, (I did this an hour before my guests arrived) decorate it with the whipped cream (mixed with a little vanilla, 50g of whipped ricotta and a little caster sugar to taste).
Place strawberries on top and decorate with leaves.

Marzipan leaves:
100g blanched almond meal
100g g icing sugar
1 egg white
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 drop green food dye

Mix contents together and use your fingers to knead the mixture; add more sugar of meal if the mixture is too wet.
Place the marzipan in between two sheets of baking paper and roll it out thinly. Cut it into shapes of leaves.

One of  the cassate (plural of cassata) I have made covered with green marzipan. Too much food colouring.

SICILIAN CASSATA and some background (perfect for an Australian Christmas)

PASTA DI MANDORLA (How to make Marzipan recipe)

MARZAPANE also called Pasta Reale (Marzipan)

CUP CAKES BUTTERFLY CAKES and FAIRY CAKES, Sicilian style

My friend John bought these little beauties around to my place when I invited him for dinner recently. I love the little silicon cups: this was the first time that he had used them; the cups not only look attractive and are functional, but they are also ‘cup’ cakes. And like his mother he placed a teaspoon of flavour inside each one – a teaspoon of apricot jam or sweetened passionfruit.

 

Like his mother he cut the top of each cake,  placed a dollop of whipped cream on top, divided each top in half and returned the two halves to the cake: these looked like wings.  Being Australian she appropriately referred to them as called them Butterfly cakes or Fairy cakes and it is easy to see why. These cakes were very popular at children’s parties and were never called Cup cakes (cupcakes), this perhaps is an American or British term. Cupcakes is what we call them in Australia now. Have they lost their wings?

John asked me if Sicilians make cupcakes and they do not,  but there is no reason why his very simple recipe cannot be infused with Sicilian flavours.

This is how John’s mother wrote the recipe. The mixture is simple and very Anglo:

3 oz butter
3 oz sugar
2 eggs
4 oz SR flour
1 tbs milk
essence of vanilla
bake 475 for 15 minutes.

Because the above only makes a small quantity, the following recipe could be more useful.  John also found that his cup cakes were a little dry, so we have reduced the amount of flour in the following recipe.

For your interest:
3 oz =113.398g,
4 oz = 113.6 g
250g= 8.8 oz
 
INGREDIENTS
250g butter, softened (add a bit of salt if using unsalted)
4 large eggs or 6 small ones
160 g castor sugar
250g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tablespoon of milk
PROCESSES
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till light and fluffy.
Mix in eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition.
Fold flour gently into cake mixture. Mix well.
Fill each cup with 1 tbsp of cake batter and using a teaspoon make a small well in the middle of the batter.
Spoon 1 tsp of strawberry jam into the well.
Place in it a teaspoon of jam. Top with another tbsp of cake batter.
Bake in the centre of oven (pre-heated 160C) for 15 to 20 minutes.
Cool cupcakes before cutting off the top.
Fill with whipped cream, cut the to that you have removed in half and replace it  to the top of the cake again.

To make Sicilian type cup cakes, I would add the following ingredients:

150 g of chopped pistachio nuts or blanched almonds (both are grown in Sicily and very common in sweets).
Use sour cherry jam (sour morello cherries are popular in Italy/ Sicily).

If the cake appears too dry after it is baked, sprinkle a little Maraschino liqueur on the top (adding liqueur to moisten cooked cakes is definitely Italian/ Sicilian).

Instead of  whipped cream, use ricotta whipped with a little vanilla flavoured sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon. Add a little cream if the mixture is too dry.

I would also place a sour cherry or a pistachio on top.

Presto, Ecco, Fatto… Here they are. Bake them in tea cups, call them Dolcetti fatti in tazza (small cakes made in cups) and they do sound exotic!.

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