A person like me gets involved in a craft project and easily forgets about everything else (such as Easter grocery shopping and dinner preparation) I tell you, this year I did everything in such a rush just because I spent too much time coloring eggs.

I was in a total time crunch, but that kind of pressure is good sometimes! It puts me into a creative state of mind and usually things turn out better than when I plan for a long time.

This Easter for desert I made Cassata. Since I spent too much time on egg coloring, I didn’t have enough time to bake a sponge cake for cassata. The pressure I was telling you about made me think of another easier way to make it – with lady fingers. Here it is:

Cassata            Printable recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 packs of lady fingers
• 26 oz (750 g) ricotta cheese
• 4 tbsp maraschino syrup (or maraschino      liquor)
• 1 small lemon (juice and zest)
• 2 envelopes (14 g) of plain gelatin
• 6 tbsp water
• 1.6 cups (400 ml) heavy cream – whipped   *Reserve 1/4 of it for decoration
• ½ cup (100 g) sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract (or 1 pack vanilla sugar)
• 5 oz (150 g) candied fruit
• 3.5 oz (100 g) chocolate  *3/4 finely chopped for filling, 1/4 for decoration
• Maraschino cherries

Also needed:

• Two 5 X 10 inches (about 13 X 25 cm) loaf pans
• Plastic wrap

Prepare Cassata:

You may use a half measure of above ingredients just to make one loaf pan cassata.

1. Line each pan with plastic wrap, cover the bottom with lady fingers (about 7 lady fingers fit on the bottom). Line the sides of the pan with lady fingers too. You will probably need to cut them so they don’t reach above the  edge of the pan. You may choose to moisten lady fingers before lining the pan, but if you leave cassata in the fridge over night, lady fingers will pick up some moisture from the filling and they will be soft.
2. Combine ricotta cheese, maraschino syrup, lemon juice and zest.  Mix well and set aside. (You may add some sugar if you think it wouldn’t be sweet enough for you).
3. Mix 6 tbsp of water with 2 envelopes of gelatin in a small cooking pot, let it rest for 10 minutes.
4. Whip the heavy cream until dense, add sugar and vanila.
5. Now place the pot with gelatin on the stove and let it melt at a low temperature, mixing the whole time. Don’t let it boil. Take about  1 cup of ricotta cheese mixture and add it to the melted gelatin. Mix well and then pour it back to the remaining ricotta cheese mixture. Mix again.
6. Now add to it bit by bit whipped cream alternating with chopped chocolate and candied fruit. Mix slowly by hand until everything is nicely blended.
7. Pour the filling into prepared pans lined with lady fingers. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge for at least 3 hours or over night.
8. When ready to serve, invert the pan slowly onto a serving plate, decorate with melted chocolate, remaining whipped cream and maraschino cherries.

BON APPETIT!