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Today I& #39;m a little homesick, and for someone from Sicily, missing home means missing its wonderful desserts.
Buckle up for a wondrous thread of Sicilian pastries: 1/
Buckle up for a wondrous thread of Sicilian pastries: 1/
Naturally, I *must* start with the king of Sicilian pastry: cannolo. Filled with ricotta cream and topped with Bronte pistachio, candied fruit, or chocolate chips, cannoli come in different sizes and are a staple of Sicilian pasticcerie. 2/
If cannolo is the king of Sicilian pastry, cassata is the absolute queen. Based on ricotta cream, cassata is topped by a layer of marzipan, glazed, and then decorated with a colored choreography of candied fruit, for an average of a trillion calories per slice. 3/
In Catania, tiny breast-shaped cassate are prepared for the feast of the city& #39;s patron saint, St. Agatha, whose breasts were mutilated before being killed. A bit gross, but that& #39;s Catholicism for ya. They& #39;re delicious.
My favorite cassate, though, are those made in eastern Sicily (Siracusa-Ragusa): baked ricotta cakes on a base of puff pastry and a dash of cinnamon. They look different in every town.
Sicilian desserts retained strong Islamic influences. This is croccante di mandorle, a very basic torrone of almonds dipped in honey caramel. You can find variants of this recipe all over the eastern Mediterranean. 5/
Another staple of Sicilian pasticcerie? Almond pastries. Paste di mandorla, topped by an almond or a candied cherry, half-dipped in chocolate, in all sorts of shapes. 6/
I talked about breast-shaped cassate, but Catholic Sicilian desserts are a whole universe of its own. We& #39;ve got an entire dessert menu for All Souls& #39; Day. These are rame di Napoli, again from Catania. Chocolate cookies glazed with chocolate cream, sprinkled with pistachio. 7/
In my hometown, near Siracusa, on All Souls& #39; Day we also eat... bones. These are ossa dei morti (bones of the dead), a super-hard cookie that has chipped many a kid& #39;s tooth. 8/
And if you& #39;re missing summer already, let me tell you a secret: in Sicily, nobody eats gelato. Instead, we have granita, a handmade frozen dessert very similar to sorbet. My favorite flavor is the one you can& #39;t find anywhere but in Sicily: black mulberry granita. 9/
We talked about granita, but we need to talk about its faithful companion: brioche. You can& #39;t have granita without brioche, period. Sicilian brioche (brioche col tuppo) has a very distinctive shape. (It appears that we& #39;re obsessed with a certain part of the female anatomy.) 10/
The most sinful combo is a brioche sandwich filled with whipped cream and gelato. With a dessert like this, things are just *bound* to get messy. But it& #39;s worth it. At least, that& #39;s what you tell your sore jaw after the deed. 11/
Sicily also has a whole tradition of semi-frozen cream cakes (we call them semifreddi) that are so aesthetically pleasing it almost hurts to slice them. These are all semifreddi from one of the oldest pasticcerie in Catania, @pasticcer_savia. 12/
The greatest semifreddo cake to have ever been created is called torta setteveli. Seven different layers of chocolate, with different flavors and textures. A slice of this cake is a mystical experience that will make you rethink your notion of "chocolate" 13/
Speaking of chocolate, did you know that there& #39;s a town in Sicily that has a unique cold-process recipe for chocolate bars (likely an Aztec recipe imported in Sicily by the Spaniards)? Meet cioccolato di Modica. Modican hot chili chocolate bars are to die for. 14/
Modica is also known for these tiny ravioli-shaped pastries called mpanatigghi, which are filled with chocolate (yes), nuts (okay), and ground meat (wut?). Another gift from the sixteenth-century Spaniard domination. 15/
I could go on forever, folks, but I& #39;ll wrap up with my last boob-shaped entry: iris. Iris(es?) can be baked (left) or fried (right) & can be filled with chocolate cream, custard, you name it. In undergrad, I would treat myself with a nutella-filled iris after an exam. 15/15
