Cassatelle: Chocolate & Ricotta Fritters

I first stumbled upon Cassatelle in a book. Of all the unknown words in Gaetano Savaterri’s I Colpevoli Sono Matti, a collection of Italian crime short stories, cassatelle was the one that fascinated me the most. As he describes the main character’s cravings for warm, sweet ricotta, I found myself salivating to know more about this mysterious Sicilian dessert so much so that I stopped reading and spent the next few hours researching more about them.

Cassatelle are half-moon pastries, filled with sweet ricotta and chocolate. They are typically deep-fried and are best served warm with a dusting of powdered sugar. Although you can skip the frying – I was tempted to do so myself as I’m not one for the whole frying mess – and bake them instead, the fried version is marginally better in my opinion and well worth all the grease stains!

One of the things I love about cassatelle is that they are a lot like cannoli in the sense that they have the same sweet ricotta filling encased by a not-too-sweet fried dough. However, I think cassatelle are much friendlier for the home cook, as you don’t need any special equipment (cannoli require special metal tubes that you wrap circles of dough around). In fact, you probably have all the equipment you need to make cassatelle at home right now!

The classic version uses ricotta and chocolate chips, but I think a dollop of jam or dried fruit paired with the ricotta would be delicious as well. You’ll want to use the best quality of whole milk ricotta that you can find. The drier, the better! Let it drain overnight in the fridge over a cheesecloth and fine mesh sieve to remove as much moisture as possible.

While not traditional, I like to add a small sprinkle of flaky sea salt to the cassatelle as they cool. To me, this helps bring out the flavors even more and balance the sweetness from the powdered sugar.