Original Palermo-style Sicilian Cassata recipe, the queen among typical Sicilian desserts, a sumptuous, delicious, rich, and majestic ricotta cake, the homemade recipe just like in a pastry shop.

A cake filled with good ricotta cream and chocolate, decorated with green almond paste, a white sugar glaze, and lots of candied fruit.

A dessert that requires several steps, which is actually not as difficult as it seems. Easily doable at home by following my step-by-step recipe for Palermo-style Sicilian cassata. You just need to get the ingredients and the suitable mold, which, if you don’t have, you can easily find online. I’ll provide you with links to purchase them if needed.

HERE you can find the version of BAKED SICILIAN CASSATA.

Another very appreciated Sicilian dessert with ricotta is the fried ricotta iris. If you have never tried them, give them a shot, HERE YOU CAN FIND MY RECIPE.

Feel free to also check out my ricotta tart recipe HERE,

Now let’s see the step-by-step recipe, also with the video recipe of the Palermo-style Sicilian Cassata.

Difficulty: Hard
Cost: Medium
Preparation time: 1 Day
Portions: 16
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients

for a Palermo-style Sicilian Cassata with a diameter of 9.5 inches

5 eggs
1.25 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2.6 lbs sheep ricotta
2 cups sugar
7 oz dark chocolate chips
5 tbsps glucose (or honey)
1/2 cup water
1.5 cups sugar
7 oz almond paste
as needed food coloring (green)
1.1 lbs candied fruit
as needed powdered sugar

Tools

1 Pan for Sicilian cassata

Steps

To make the Palermo-style Sicilian Cassata, you should start preparing some ingredients the day before. The first thing you should definitely do is take care of the ricotta.
Fresh sheep ricotta is too soft because it’s full of whey, so it’s advisable to let it drain in the fridge in its molds or in a colander. For a whole night, or if necessary, even 24 hours.
Still the day before, proceed by making a simple sponge cake.
In a bowl, place the eggs and sugar and whip until stiff for at least 20 minutes, it should become a solid and compact cloud.
Gradually add the flour to the mixture and slowly incorporate it by stirring from the bottom up with a wooden spoon, so the mixture does not deflate.
Once you have incorporated all the flour, prepare a rectangular pan by buttering and flouring it. Pour the mixture and place in the oven at 350°F on the middle rack in static mode for about half an hour.
Your sponge cake should be lightly golden. Do the toothpick test and take it out of the oven.
Turn it onto a tray and let it cool covered with a kitchen cloth.
Set it aside in this way until it is used.
The next day, prepare the ricotta cream.
Place the ricotta with the sugar in a bowl and mix until the sugar is well combined with the ricotta.
Add the dark chocolate chips, mix.
Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.
Take the almond paste, I conveniently bought it online HERE. I just added a few drops of green coloring and kneaded the almond paste until the color was homogeneous.
With a little powdered sugar on the surface, roll out the almond paste until you get a thickness of about 1/5 inch.
Cut a strip and try to insert it inside the pan to adjust its required height.
From this strip, cut all the others of the same height.
Cut trapezoids from the strips as shown in the photo.
Take the sponge cake and cut strips using a trapezoid as a measure.
Divide the sponge cake creating strips as thin as possible, no more than 2/5 inch thick.
Using two strips, recreate the trapezoids as you did with the almond paste.
Take the pan and dust it with powdered sugar. Lay the almond paste trapezoids alternating with the sponge cake trapezoids, making them fit. Then cut off what protrudes from the pan.
Cover the bottom with whole strips of sponge cake. Add all the ricotta cream.
Level the cream with a spatula and close the cake with more sponge cake strips.
Remove the excess sponge cake.
Place a tray and turn the Palermo-style Sicilian Cassata upside down.
Remove the pan, dust the cake with powdered sugar, and cover with plastic wrap.
Put the pan back on, turn it upside down, put the tray on top, and place your Palermo-style Sicilian cassata in the fridge for at least 8 hours, remember the tray must be the lid.
After 8 hours have passed. Take the Palermo-style Sicilian cassata, turn it upside down, remove the pan and plastic wrap.
Proceed to prepare the fondant glaze, also called ‘velatura’ in Sicily.
Put the glucose (or honey), water, and granulated sugar in a saucepan. Turn on the heat and cook until it becomes transparent and bubbles. When it starts to boil, wait another 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
If you have a thermometer, turn it off when it reaches 239°F.
Use an electric whisk to beat this glaze until it becomes slightly white.
At this point, the fondant glaze is ready to be used.
You need to be quick because it dries fast.
With a spatula, first pass it on the edges and then pour the remaining directly in the center of the cake to fill the step.
Your Palermo-style Sicilian cassata original recipe is practically ready, you just need to decorate it with the candied fruit you have.
Palermo pastry shops usually start by placing a tangerine or half an orange in the center.
But there is no typical arrangement, use your creativity.
After decorating the surface, your Palermo-style Sicilian cassata is ready to honor the most important celebrations.
It was traditionally an Easter dessert, but the Palermo-style Sicilian cassata, having become the queen of Sicilian desserts, is found in all pastry shops all year round and is the protagonist of all Sicilian festivities.
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Until next time from Sapore di Arianna!