Synthesis: Cassata ice cream

by Guest Sun May 14, 2017 8:01 am

Faced with competition from other, newer desserts, this particular ice-cream seems to have fallen out of popular favour in recent years, but growing up in Mumbai – and this might be true for those in other cities too – in the early 1970s and ‘80s, (and earlier) the absolute summit of frozen desserts was the Cassata. Often longed for but seldom consumed this ice-cream delight was the stuff dreams were made of. It wasalso the most expensive ice-cream on the list and thus out of bounds as a child and even during my college days. It was only possible to eat one thanks to the largesse of generous uncles or aunts or – in order to impress – with a romantic partner. I still remember how, when it was served at the Freemason’s Hall (where my mother ran the catering at the time), the freezer was kept locked and there was a strict audit of the slices.

The Cassata then was a thin layer of cake smeared sometimes with jam and then topped with three layers of ice-cream and pressed into a round mould and coated with a thick layer of nuts, usually chopped or broken cashews. It was then cut into wedges and served. The cassata I found recently was flat-it had been moulded into a D-shaped log to make it easy for cutting and packing individually into D-shaped plastic trays.

The original Cassata though is a very different animal. It is Italian and it has no ice-cream in it at all. The only similarity is that it is moulded and cut into wedges for serving. It consists of layers of espresso-drenched sponge cake with sweet ricotta filling placed into a round mould lined with almond paste. The cassata is un-moulded and topped with candied fruits before being served. The Italians would like us to believe that the name derives from the Latin word for cheese – casu. But this Sicilian dessert is supposed to have had its origins amongst the exotic Arabian cuisines introduced to Europe by the Moors.

According to the food historian Clifford A. Wright the word Cassata is derived from the Arabic word qua’sat i.e. a wide round flat-based bowl. Considering that it was the Arabs who brought sugar to Europe qua’sat is a more plausible origin. Cassata became incredibly popular in Italy and was used as a celebratory food by the Jews (during Purim) and the Christians (during Holy Week), uniting all three Abrahamic faiths like perhaps nothing else. Some centuries later the enterprising Sicilians came up with a version in which they replaced the ricotta with gelato and the modern Cassata was born.

Today there are many versions and different recipes of the Cassata all over the globe. But to us in India it’s a frozen dessert with three kinds of ice-cream topped with nuts all sitting on a thin layer of dry cake. It’s a very interesting blend of the Cassata shape combined with yet another classic the ‘Neapolitan Ice-cream’, a triple-layered multi-flavoured block cut into wedges and served up straight. The Neapolitan usually has vanilla, chocolate and strawberry as its flavours. In India we’ve replaced the flavours with those that work for the Indian palate-it almost always has tutti-frutti (a great Indian favourite) in its innermost core followed usually by pista and then topped by strawberry.

https://thewire.in/135278/cassata-three-layered-ice-cream-nuts-tutti-frutti-lots-memories/

by SomeProfile Sun May 14, 2017 11:54 am

Hast-Maithun (H-M) synthesis of hand cream by Rashmun the Doucheman! rofl

Synthesis: Cassata ice cream

Synthesis: Cassata ice cream

Re: Synthesis: Cassata ice cream