Cassata: From Sicily to a 1920s Recipe in Alexandria

Cassata is a celebrated Italian dessert from Sicily. Here is its history, its two main forms, and why Délices still makes cassata from a 1920s recipe.

Cassata is an Italian dessert from Sicily. The traditional Sicilian cassata is a round sponge cake layered with sweetened ricotta, covered in marzipan and decorated with candied fruit. A frozen version, cassata gelata, layers ice cream with candied fruit and nuts. At Délices, cassata is made from a recipe dating to the 1920s.

Sicilian origins

Sicily's cassata reflects the island's layered history. Ricotta, sugar cane, citrus and almonds all have strong associations with the Arab period in Sicily, and many food historians connect the dessert's beginnings to that era, though the exact origin is debated. The name is often linked to the Arabic qas'a, a deep bowl, but that too is uncertain.

Two kinds of cassata

Cassata siciliana is the baked and assembled cake, a showpiece for Easter. Cassata gelata, popular in the twentieth century across Italy and beyond, is frozen, often moulded and sliced. Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the word came to describe many layered, ice-cold desserts.

Italian Alexandria

Early twentieth-century Alexandria had a sizable Italian community alongside its Greek one, and Italian sweets became part of the city's patisserie repertoire. A cassata on a café menu here is a small piece of that history.

A recipe from the 1920s, still on the counter.

The Délices cassata

Our cassata is made to a 1920s recipe, one of several in the kitchen that have stayed in the same family since Délices opened in 1922. It is one of the clearest links between the café today and the city its founders knew.

Order cassata from Délices

Call us to order cassata or plan it for a gathering: +20 3 486 1432. We're at 46 Saad Zaghloul Street, Raml Station, open daily 8 AM – 1 AM.