More Family Recipes: Dessert Edition!

One well-known Italian dessert, and one lesser-known dessert.

It’s Sunday, a day that is commonly associated with home cooking and good food, so I think it’s time for another recipe post.

Today’s recipes are two Italian dessert recipes. One is a fairly well-known dessert: cannoli. I’m sharing my family’s cannoli filling recipe for your enjoyment.

I’m also sharing a recipe for something called Cassatta, which is like a dessert casserole made with angel food cake and panna cotta. It should have a smooth consistency, like a creamy, slightly loose jello. I promise, it tastes better than it sounds.

As usual, I’ll be posting the recipe as written with notes in parentheses. Both of these call for almond extract, which can be omitted for those with nut allergies.

Ricotta Cannoli Filling

3 cups ricotta (1 ½ lbs)

¾ cups sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp almond extract

1. Combine and heat until smooth, ten minutes with electric beater on medium speed. (I have never actually made this myself, so using a KitchenAid mixer on medium would probably work well for this. Add the sugar slowly to ensure mixing thoroughly.)
2. Optional, add:
3. ½ cup chopped (finely) candied citron
4. ¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate bits (finely-chopped chocolate or mini chips work well)
5. Mix thoroughly
6. Refrigerate.

This can be piped into cannoli shells in the standard way and garnished with chocolate chips on the ends.

Cassatta

7 cups whole milk (Please use whole milk. My parents liked to use skim milk for a lot of things, and it never turned out well.)

2 cups sugar

1 cup corn starch

5 cinnamon sticks

2 loaf angel food cake, cut into ½ inch slices (can also use pound cake)

1 large Hershey bar chopped (use good chocolate, don’t use Hershey)

(Jarred) Cherries, drained and cut in half

Almond extract (optional)

1. Combine 6 cups of milk with the sugar and cinnamon sticks. Heat to just below boiling point, stirring occasionally (regularly) so it doesn’t stick.
2. While milk mixture is heating, combine corn starch and the remaining 1 cup of milk, stirring until corn starch is dissolved.
3. Blend corn starch mixture slowly into the heating milk and stir continuously, being careful that the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
4. Cook until the mixture thickens and is glossy, about 5–10 minutes.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and cool completely before assembling the cake. This can be done by cooling the pan in a bowl of ice water, making sure that no water gets into the milk mixture and stirring the mixture constantly (to prevent sticking). It should cool in 5–10 minutes this way.

To assemble the cake:

1. Assemble one layer of cake in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. (It doesn’t have to look pretty, it’s going to get covered with stuff. You can chunk it up to make it fit however you like.)
2. Brush cake with almond extract. (You can also use vanilla extract if you’d prefer; you don’t have to use either if you don’t want to.)
3. Pour half of the cream mixture over the cake and sprinkle ⅓ of the (chocolate).
4. Add another layer of cake, then extract, then cream mixture. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate on top.
5. Arrange the cherries on top (cut side down) on top of the cake and refrigerate. (We usually do 12 half-cherries in a 4 x 3 grid. You can do whatever you want.)

Enjoy these dessert recipes!

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Here’s my previous recipe post: