The Fedora cake is a spectacular Sicilian dessert, an old and elegant cake, typical of the Catania area, the mother of the classic and famous Sicilian cassata. The Fedora cake, in fact, consists of a sponge cake filled with ricotta cream and chocolate chips, enriched with a fragrant orange syrup and decorated with toasted almond flakes, candied cherries, and pistachios. Soft, fragrant, with a creamy heart and crunchy coating, the Fedora cake is a colorful and rich dessert full of contrasts, with all the colors, aromas, and ingredients typical of a traditional Sicilian dessert, it will captivate you at the first taste, it is perfect to bring to the table for Easter celebrations, in Sicily, it’s not Easter without a ricotta dessert 😀
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Affordable
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 8-9 inch mold
- Cooking methods: Oven, Electric Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 lemon zest
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste vanilla
- 2.2 lbs ricotta
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/8 cup dark chocolate chips
- to taste vanilla
- 2/3 cup water
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp cointreau
- 1 orange zest
- 3/4 cup sliced almonds
- to taste chopped pistachios
- to taste candied cherries
Steps
The Fedora cake is quite simple to prepare, first, make the sponge cake, follow the quantities indicated in the recipe and the written procedure HERE.
Make the ricotta cream: in a bowl put the well-drained ricotta, sugar, vanilla, and mix with electric whisks, you should obtain a smooth and homogeneous cream, then incorporate the dark chocolate chips.
Prepare the syrup: in a saucepan put the water, the zest of an orange, and bring to a boil, add the sugar, the liqueur, and stir, the sugar should dissolve completely.
Once cold, cut the sponge cake in half, you should get two equal disks. Soak the base with some syrup and fill it with a generous layer of ricotta cream, level it well. Cover with the second sponge cake disk and soak it too, with the remaining syrup.
Coat the Fedora cake with the ricotta cream and decorate it as you like, I put along the entire edge and a little on the surface the almond flakes that I toasted in the oven at 400°F for 5-7 minutes, I put some chopped pistachios in the center, made some tufts with a bit of ricotta cream, and placed candied cherries and dark chocolate chips on top.
The Fedora cake is ready, you can consume it immediately, although I recommend letting it rest for at least an hour, so it will settle and flavor well.
Notes:
The Fedora cake keeps in the fridge for about 3 days. You can use either cow’s milk ricotta or sheep’s milk ricotta, or even half and half. You can decorate the cake as you prefer, always using the traditional almonds, pistachio, dark chocolate, and candied cherries. If you can, make the sponge cake a few hours before assembling the dessert, even the day before.
Other Sicilian desserts HERE
