Cake twenty-six Sicilian Cassata

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It’s a cake which steals a lot of your time and patience of course. It’s not too difficult to make, anyway: you need some practice to get to the right combination of good taste and elegant decoration but it’s well worth a try! 

Consider one day to bake and assemble it, then another day in the fridge before decoration and a couple of days before eating so that all the flavours can harmoniously blend in.

Step 1 - Sponge Cake

6 eggs, separated

250 g sugar

250 g flour

Beat yolks and sugar with electric mixer until thick and foamy. Fold in flour. In the meantime beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gently fold a little of the beaten egg whites into the batter to lighten it and then add the rest of the whites folding just until incorporated. Do not overmix the batter or it will deflate. Pour mixture evenly into a 20cm-round tin and bake cake at 180° for about 30 min.  or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 

Immediately turn cake onto a wire rack prepared with baking parchment to cool.  

Step 2 - Ricotta filling

1 kg fresh ricotta

250 g sugar 

100 g chocolate, chopped 

Should ricotta be too wet, place it on a colander for about 30 min. Then whip ricotta and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended and smooth. Fold in the chocolate. Refrigerate.

Step 3 - Marzipan

200 g marzipan 

green food colouring

Knead marzipan and some green food colouring until you get a vivid green and the colour is uniform.

Step 4 - Cake assembling

sponge cake

green marzipan 

some vermouth 

ricotta filling 

plastic wrap

Line a 30cm frying pan with plastic wrap. 

Roll out a 10cm wide marzipan stripe. Line the side of the pan as in photo. Cut the sponge cake into 1cm thick slices and use them to line the base and sides of the frying pan. Sprinkle some vermouth over the slices until they’re moist but not wet. Spread ricotta filling evenly over cake base. Top with remaining cake slices and sprinkle vermouth over cake. 

Refrigerate for at least one day.

Step 5 - Royal Icing

2 egg whites

375 g icing sugar

some lemon juice

Whip egg whites and sugar with an electric mixer until hard peaks form. Pour in some lemon juice.

Step 6 - Cake assembling

Cake in the frying pan

Royal icing 

Candied fruit: cherries, citron, a tangerine, or any fruit of your choice.

Turn Cassata onto serving plate. Discard plastic wrap.

 Decorate the cake to your taste. Refrigerate for 3/4 hours at least.

also visit:

http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/06/cake-twenty-six.html

Cake seven - Ice Cream Bombe

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This cake is a bit long to make but it’s certainly worth the effort! It’s not at all complicated anyway...  

You need to make the sponge first and then the ice cream (you can buy some good ice cream to make things easier..... ). 

All in all it's best made one day ahead.

If you want to try and make the ice cream yourself see the next page. 

Step 1 Sponge cake 

I'm using the recipe of a ‘Swiss Roll’ which I find much more suitable for two reasons: it takes shorter to bake and it’s thin enough in height. So we save time....

150 gr sugar

3 eggs

150 gr flour

some baking powder

a pinch of salt

Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer until thick and light. Fold in flour, baking powder and salt. 

Line swill roll pan with paper. Grease paper. Pour mixture into pan. Bake at 180° for about 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile prepare a sheet of paper same size as sponge. When sponge is cooked, turn immediately onto paper, quickly peel away lining paper. Cool cake. 

Step 2 - Home made ice cream 

You can use one or two ice cream flavours, any flavour is fine. I myself have used ricotta cheese with choc buttons and Malaga (raisin) ice cream.

Here are the recipes, if you want to try:

Ricotta Cheese Ice cream with choc buttons

180 gr sugar

1 egg

400 gr milk 

250 gr ricotta cheese

150 gr choc buttons

Beat egg and sugar with electric mixer until smooth. Beat in ricotta cheese. and then milk.. Pour mixture into ice cream maker bowl. Start the machine. When ice cream is ready stir in choc buttons. 

Malaga (raisin) Ice Cream

125 gr sugar

1 egg

250 gr milk

150 gr cream (or milk)

80 gr raisins 

some rhum or vermouth 

Soak raisins in rhum for 1/2 hour. In the meantime beat egg and sugar with electric mixer until smooth. Beat in milk and cream. Pour mixture into ice cream maker bowl. Start the machine. When ice cream is ready, drain the raisins and stir them in with some liqueur.

Step 3 - Cake assemblage

Here we are! We're nearly finished! We only have to assemble the cake. 

Line 5-cup (about 1 1/4 L) capacity pudding basin with plastic wrap, extending plastic 5 cm over edge of basin. 
Trim edges from cake. Cut out a 10 cm and a 20 cm rounds to fit the bottom and top of basin  and finally a one 10 cm wide slice, lengthways. 

Place bottom and sides into basin, pressing all parts firmly.

Spoon Ricotta cheese ice cream into bowl and flatten out. Then pour Malaga ice cream and do the same. Top with cake round. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight. 

also visit:
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2012/08/cake-seven.html