9

FILLING

Traditionally, cassata was

enjoyed around Easter,

when the milk for the

ricotta was sweetest.

These days, the filling is

typically sweetened with

sugar and flavoured with

orange zest, cinnamon

and chocolate. It’s also

common for the layers

of pan di Spagna to be

splashed with maraschino

liqueur or Marsala for

a little oomph.

TOPPING

The bright candied fruit and

rinds, elaborately arranged in

Baroque-inspired patterns, are

a cassata’s crowning glory. Find

candied pears, oranges and other

preserved fruits in David Jones

food halls, Simon Johnson, or

Italian delis, of course.

CASING

There are many versions of cassata, but

the two most common are the simple al

forno, studded with chocolate and baked

inside a sweet pie dough, and the cassata

Siciliana, pictured here, with green-tinted

marzipan as the outer layer. Both are

typically prepared in a wide pan with

sloping sides called a qas’at.

152 GOURMET TRAVELLER

WORDS MAGGIE SCARDIFIELD. PHOTOGRAPHY ALICIA TAYLOR.STYLING ROSIE MEEHAN. FOOD PREPARATION MAX ADEY. ALL PROPS STYLIST’S OWN

PaRi Pasticceria in Sydney’s Concord is known for

its cassata Siciliana; in Brisbane, you can find one

made with Strega and a pistachio-nut crust at

Gerbino’s Pasticceria. The cake has also appeared

on the menu at Rosetta in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Y

ou’re as beautiful as a cassata,” goes the Sicilian

saying. The ricotta-filled sponge cakes, elaborately

covered in jewels of candied fruit and found all

over Sicily, are certainly the pasticceria’s most

flamboyant sweet. But it’s not all about looks. The cake can also

be seen as a snapshot of thousands of years of Sicily’s history.

From the sweetened-ricotta filling – sheep and goat’s milk

ricotta was made by Greeks in Italy as early as 650 BC – to

the marzipan, royal icing or fondant outer layer of the cake

that can be attributed to the Arabs who invaded in the 9th

century and planted sugarcane. The pan di Spagna or sponge,

meanwhile, was likely brought to the island by the Spanish.

A Sicilian proverb says, “sad is the one who does not eat

cassata on Easter morning.” But we’ll have it all year around.

This layered andilled Sicilian cake

also contains layers of history.

Cassata

Find

one

ANATOMY OF A DISH