Kit Cat wrote, "I am seeking the recipe for Cassadetti (I may not be spelling it correctly). It is a deep fried cake/cookie, it is made of a sweet dough filled with dried ricotta cheese and honey. They are usually shaped as a half moon. The dough is filled, closed, ends pressed down with fork and then deep fried in vegetable shortening. Turns out they're Sicilian...
Prep Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 pounds fresh ricotta (the crumbly kind one buys in delicatessens)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 pound diced candied melon rind, finely diced
- 1/4 pound diced candied orange peel, finely diced
- 1/4 pound baking chocolate, finely shaved
- A pinch vanilla bean (figure 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
- Pasta frolla sufficient to line and cover a 9-inch pan (see link below)
- Confectioner's sugar for dusting
- Pan di Spagna (see link below)
Preparation:
...and called Cassatelle (Cassateddi in Sicilian) di Ricotta. Pino Correnti notes, in introducing them in his "Il Libro d'Oro della Cucina e dei Vini di Sicilia" that they're an Easter thing and especially popular in the area around Modiciano. His recipe doesn't mention frying, but he does say that there's an infinite number of variations on the theme. Likewise, though he suggests sugar one could easily replace it with honey as the sweetener.
We'll begin with the basic Cassata recipe:
This is the recipe developed by Salvatore Beninati, pastry chef of the Antica Pasticceria Mazzarra in Via Generale Magliocco 15/21, where Tommasi di Lampedusa wrote much of his celebrated Il Gattopardo.
Put the ricotta through a strainer and mix it with the sugar (Ada Boni, in her recipe, suggests you beat the sugar and ricotta until the mixture is light and fluffy). Stir in the vanilla, candied fruit and chocolate, mixing well to distribute them evenly.
Roll out your pasta frolla and line a 9-inch cake pan with it. Lay down a layer of crumbled pan di spagna over the dough, spoon the ricotta mixture over it, and cover everything with a second sheet of pasta frolla. Bake in a moderate (370 F, 185 C) oven until the pasta frolla is lightly browned (don't let it over brown or it will become quite hard). Remove it from the pan when it has cooled and dust it with the confectioner's sugar.
Note: Ada Boni suggests a slightly different procedure: She has you line your cake pan with oven paper, then with pieces of pan di spagna cut into strips so as to make a pan di spagna box, which should be filled with the ricotta mixture and covered with a thin lid of pan di spagna. She then has you chill the cassata and remove it from the pan by covering the cake with a serving plate, flipping everything, and carefully lifting away the pan and the paper. Then she tells you to dust the cake with powdered sugar -- no baking other than that of the pan di spagna involved.
In any case, with regards to Cassateddi di Ricotta, Mr. Correnti says, "they're an Easter cake, common throughout the Island (in the past they were also made from boiled ground chick peas mixed with cooked wine), especially in the Modiciano area. They're made by splitting small loaves of pan di spagna and filling them with ricotta that has been put through a strainer, sweetened with sugar, and enriched with chocolate and candied fruit. At Modica they're also made with tuma, a very fresh unsalted cheese. Dusted with an abundance of confectioner's sugar, they're topped with candied cherries. A more recent variation has them filled with crema pasticcera (pastry cream) and topped with sugar frosting. The popularity of "cassatelle" has led to the saying, cu nn'appi n'appi cassateddi ri Pasqua, which one uses in Sicily at the end of any event, meaning that it's time for all, those pleased and those less so, turn their attention to other things."
We'll begin with the basic Cassata recipe:
This is the recipe developed by Salvatore Beninati, pastry chef of the Antica Pasticceria Mazzarra in Via Generale Magliocco 15/21, where Tommasi di Lampedusa wrote much of his celebrated Il Gattopardo.
Put the ricotta through a strainer and mix it with the sugar (Ada Boni, in her recipe, suggests you beat the sugar and ricotta until the mixture is light and fluffy). Stir in the vanilla, candied fruit and chocolate, mixing well to distribute them evenly.
Roll out your pasta frolla and line a 9-inch cake pan with it. Lay down a layer of crumbled pan di spagna over the dough, spoon the ricotta mixture over it, and cover everything with a second sheet of pasta frolla. Bake in a moderate (370 F, 185 C) oven until the pasta frolla is lightly browned (don't let it over brown or it will become quite hard). Remove it from the pan when it has cooled and dust it with the confectioner's sugar.
Note: Ada Boni suggests a slightly different procedure: She has you line your cake pan with oven paper, then with pieces of pan di spagna cut into strips so as to make a pan di spagna box, which should be filled with the ricotta mixture and covered with a thin lid of pan di spagna. She then has you chill the cassata and remove it from the pan by covering the cake with a serving plate, flipping everything, and carefully lifting away the pan and the paper. Then she tells you to dust the cake with powdered sugar -- no baking other than that of the pan di spagna involved.
In any case, with regards to Cassateddi di Ricotta, Mr. Correnti says, "they're an Easter cake, common throughout the Island (in the past they were also made from boiled ground chick peas mixed with cooked wine), especially in the Modiciano area. They're made by splitting small loaves of pan di spagna and filling them with ricotta that has been put through a strainer, sweetened with sugar, and enriched with chocolate and candied fruit. At Modica they're also made with tuma, a very fresh unsalted cheese. Dusted with an abundance of confectioner's sugar, they're topped with candied cherries. A more recent variation has them filled with crema pasticcera (pastry cream) and topped with sugar frosting. The popularity of "cassatelle" has led to the saying, cu nn'appi n'appi cassateddi ri Pasqua, which one uses in Sicily at the end of any event, meaning that it's time for all, those pleased and those less so, turn their attention to other things."
