Sicilian Cassata Butter Cake

This show-stopping cassata cake is the crown jewel of Sicilian desserts! Dan Pasquali’s authentic cassata cake features layers of butter cake soaked in maraschino syrup, filled with sweet ricotta, chocolate chips, and candied fruit, all wrapped in green marzipan. This traditional cassata cake is topped with sugar glaze and decorated with stunning candied fruits. While this cassata cake takes time and love, the result is a spectacular dessert worthy of special celebrations. This cassata cake recipe brings true Italian patisserie magic to your kitchen!

Full Recipe: https://everydaygourmet.tv/recipes/sicilian-cassata-butter-cake

Ingredients:
Butter Cake
250g unsalted butter, softened
3 tsp vanilla extract
1½ cups caster sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup full-cream milk
Pinch salt

Ricotta Filling
250g firm ricotta
200g caster sugar
50g dark chocolate chips (35% or higher)
50g mixed candied peel
Zest of 1 lemon

Marzipan
1kg marzipan
Green food colouring (a few drops)

Syrup
150ml water
½ cup maraschino liqueur
50g caster sugar

Sugar Glaze
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
2–3 tbsp water

Royal Icing
1 egg white
150g icing sugar, sifted

Decoration
10 glacé cherries
200g candied orange slices
200g candied cedro (citron)
1 whole candied clementine

Method:
Make the Butter Cake, preheat the oven to 160°C (fan). Grease and line two deep 9-inch round cake tins. Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in half the flour, add half the milk, and mix until combined. Repeat with remaining flour and milk. Divide the batter evenly between the tins and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks.

To prepare the ricotta filling, press the ricotta through a sieve into a bowl for a smoother texture. Stir in the sugar until dissolved, then fold through the chocolate chips, lemon zest and candied peel. Refrigerate until needed.

Knead a few drops of green food colouring into the marzipan until evenly tinted. Wrap tightly in cling film until ready to use.

To make the syrup, combine water and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Turn it off and Set aside to cool. When it’s cooler, add the maraschino.

To make the sugar glaze, whisk the icing sugar and water together until smooth and pourable. Set aside.

Prepare the royal icing, lightly whisk the egg white and gradually add sifted icing sugar until the mixture is smooth and pipeable. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a fine tip.

To assemble, use a deep 10-inch round tin. Dust your bench with icing sugar and roll the marzipan into a sausage. Roll it out to a 0.5-inch thickness and line the sides of the tin with it, trimming any excess at the top.

Slice the cooled cakes into three even layers. Place one layer at the bottom of the tin and brush generously with syrup. Spread half the ricotta filling evenly on top. Add the second cake layer, brush with syrup, and spread over the remaining ricotta. Top with the final cake layer.

Invert the tin onto a serving plate and gently remove the tin. Pour the sugar glaze over the top of the cake, letting it drip naturally. Decorate with piped royal icing and arrange the candied fruits beautifully on top. For a dramatic finish, place the whole candied clementine in the center.

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Develop your prowess in the kitchen with one of Australia’s most loved cooks, Justine Schofield on Everyday Gourmet.
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My favorite Italian baker is here. We’re going to be making the most traditional Sicilian style cake. What’s it called, Dan? It’s called Casata Sichiliano. Oh, it is such a striking standout type of cake because I know the cake is we’ve got some sponge and some ricotta, but it’s the way it’s decorated. Oh, it’s over the top. And of course, I had to add my twist as well. Of course. Yes, absolutely. So, let’s start with the buttercake. Can you please Justine cream the butter with the sugar for now. Okay. The whole We put the all of that. Whole lot of unsalted butter. Oh yes. Unsalted butter with some casa sugar. And then we add a tiny bit of vanilla just to give an extra flavor. Lovely. Look at that. Easy. And about a teaspoon of extract. A teaspoon. Two tablespoon. Honestly, with vanilla, I never measure it. I just put as much as I want cuz I love vanilla. Now, let’s cream everything together for like a minute or two. And in the meantime, I’m going to crack some eggs that I’m going to pass. Okay. And now, Justin, can you add one egg at a time and then keep mixing? [Music] [Applause] Perfect. And now we’re going to add half of the flour with the milk. We’re going to mix it for a couple of minutes. And then add the rest. Okay. And then half the milk. Let’s add the milk. And why do we do half half? So we do have half. So in this way all the dry ingredients they will be incorporated uniformly and the butter will be perfect. [Music] Oh, look at that. Beautiful. Nice and uniform. It’s a lovely batter, isn’t it? Oh my gosh. Yes. And it’s a lot. Yes, it’s a lot because the cake is giant. But we’re going to divide the butter into these two tins that they already made before. So, let’s put half of that and then half here. And we’re going to bake it at 160 fanfolds for 40 45 minutes until it’s nice and cooked. I hope I’ve made them even for you. You wouldn’t want an uneven. You nailed it. Okay, good. I’ll give you that. Thank you. And I’m going to spread it out so at least it’s nice and uniform. It looks like it’s quite a skinny little cake, but because they’re self-raising flour, they are going to lift significantly. Big. And I always love to lick the spoon because I think that’s the best part. Well, you do that and I’ll pop them in the oven. Okay, you do in the oven and I’ll try with butter. [Music] Okay, now cakes are baking. So, let’s make the filling. Okay, fillings is actually very easy. We have some sugar here. I’m going to put some ricotta in there. Oops. And this is what makes the casata. I mean, apart from all the lovely toppings, but that delicious ricotta in the center for creamy, silky, zesty. Going to put all the ricotta because, you know, in Italy we eat a lot of ricotta. Yeah. Delicious. Okay. Now, I have a ricotta with the sugar. I’m going to add some chocolate, some peeled uh fruits. Like we have a mix of lemon and oranges. Y mix it. And in the meantime, can you please put some zest for me, please? I decided to put lemon, but people, they can usually put just orange as well. Very nice. And I guess we just pop this into the fridge and it just chills until our cakes are ready. Exactly. Or if you want, you can just eat it. No way. Damn, we got to wait. Patient. Patient. I’m not patient. All right, let’s have a little taste. It’s already taste tiny bit. Yes. No more. All right, our buttercakes have come out of the oven. They’ve cooled completely and now for the intricate part. And now we’re going to slice them. I have a cake slicer here just to make sure the slices they are nice and flat. If you don’t have it, just take a serrated knife. There we go. Oh, look at that. It’s beautiful. Nice color, right? Okay. This is the best part. You literally just put that. You just slice it. Wow. And and just like that. Ta. Look at this. It’s so flat. I know. I need to invest in one of these. Yeah, you did it. That makes life so much easier. Oh, smelling vanilla. M. So good. So delicious. Yeah. Okay. Let’s slice another cake. Okay. Oh, I get this. So, you just make sure that you don’t you want everything to be as flat as possible for the cake. Yeah. Because you don’t want this cake crooked. Otherwise, it doesn’t look right. No. No. Will know. Actually, if I’ve got any leftover cake like this, I would freeze it and make a trifle. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Really delicious. It freezes quite well and then and then falls nicely, too. And done. Okay, we have a four slices here. And now we are going to trim a little bit the edges because I made earlier this beautiful tin covered with some marzipan. Green marzipan. So what you did with this is you needed the marzy pan and some green coloring until it’s really soft and then cut it out just as a collar for our cake tin just to keep everything together. And now we’re going to trim the cake. I found this beautiful bowl. So we’re going to put on top of it. I have a knife and literally I’m going to remove the edges because we don’t need them. Mhm. And after that, we are going to put the first layer of cake inside the tin. Well, this is a really good tip to do it like this as opposed to sort of cutting and not knowing exactly how to do it. I’ll get that out of your way. Thank you. And then we are going to put the first layer inside the cake. Look. Perfect. Like a glove. Nailed it. And now to make it a little bit more boozy, I have some maroscino here that I’m going to brush. Maros is like a cherry le. Can I have a taste of that? Yeah, of course you can. M. Delicious, right? That’s delicious. Yeah. Mhm. And next step will be we put the ricotta filling. But we put just half of it. Oh, like so quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it’s quite a lot. So just that. And then that’s Yeah. Perfect. And now you just put roughly you just cover the first layer of cake. And now we’re going to put another layer of cake. Then we cut and then cake. That’s it. Very good. All right. [Music] [Music] Okay, now the cake has been in the fridge for a couple of hours and now we’re going to unmold it. Okay. Could I do this ahead, like a day ahead of time? Oh, much better. So, you can do it the day before and then so it will be nice and firm and it will be easy to unmold it. Okay, great. And while I’m doing this, Justine, could you please mix the water in the icing sugar to make the glaze for me, please? You sure can. Okay, that’s a tricky part. Good luck. A. Okay. Now, let’s cross the fingers. He’s hiding under the bench. You see, cuz he’s nervous. Okay. Oh, it’s coming slowly. This is a very slow process. Don’t rush it. Mhm. But you know what? I’m actually not patient. I’m always like, I need to be rushed. Oh, yes. We did it. I’ll take that off for you. Let’s remove that. Oh my god, look at that. How beautiful is this? I mean, it’s still naked, but not for long. Not for long. So, we are going to put the glaze just on top of it just to cover the cake. Uhhuh. And then with the help of the spatula, I’m going to spread it evenly. I give this one to you. And then literally just be very gentle. Just cover all all of it. And now the best part. We’re going to decorate it with some glass fruit. Oh, stunning. I have here a bit of pineapple, oranges, cherry. Delicious. Just covering it and make it look like a queen. Okay. Oh, a queen cake. I like that. Add some tweezers because otherwise your hand will get sticky. You’re a professional. Oops. Okay. Let’s just put this one in the middle because I want to make it look like it’s a sun. Yeah. Okay. So, let’s add this red cherry in the middle. Cute. Slice oranges. Perfect. So, I guess this is where you just take your time and just fill in the details and and and be creative with how you’re dressing your kappa. [Music] Wow. down. I thought it was beautiful when you just placed that first pineapple, but then you’ve added all the other fruits and then this decoration, it’s just elevates it so much. It’s so pretty. Oh, I’m glad you like it. Looks like is a definitely is an overthe-top cake. Very colorful. Very Italian. Very Italian. Exactly. And now, as you know, I love to add one special ingredient. Glitter. He loves his glitter. Okay, you can put some glitter on it. Go for it. Yes. Look at that. This is Daniel. This is me. Daniel’s casata. That is I guess it’s time to party, right? Exactly. When you make a casata, you know that it’s certainly a celebration. When do you eat casata in in Italy? Usually you eat casada for Easter or for some big big celebration like a 50th, 60th or if if it’s for me every day. Oh my gosh, Daniel. I just think that is an absolute treat of delicious buttercream cake. There’s some ricotta in there. It is simply a work of art with a little bit of Danny sparkle. Thank you so much. Thank you.