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I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it. I had been frying for a couple of weeks already and all my Hanukkah posts were already up. Yet something just felt wrong.
OPS. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t posted anything special for all my readers and friends who are not Jewish and celebrate Christmas. I felt so awful, that I toyed with the idea of attempting a Panettone, the famous Italian Christmas Cake!
However, Panettone is really difficult to make, requiring several phases of exceptionally long rising, and the use of special Italian bread flours that are hard to find. Here is something much quicker, and just as decadent: it’s an ancient Jewish Roman dessert, kind of a cheese pancake, shockingly simple to make, which the Roman Catholic community somehow adopted as the dessert of choice to end their Christmas dinner with (maybe after one too many panettone flops)? 
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The Jews of Rome still make it for Shavuot, but of course it would also work for Hanukkah (after all, according to several food historians, the original Hanukkah pancakes were made with cheese). In spite of its minimalism, Cassola is so tasty that Claudia Roden, in her Book of Jewish Food, tells that she enchanted a whole dinner party of food writers with it, at the Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery. Cassola is sweet, creamy, and delicate (and naturally low-fat! but you could never tell). May your holiday season be just as delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 pound ricotta cheese (made from whole milk, without emulsifiers)
- 4 large eggs
- 1 to 1 ½ cup sugar? (depending on desired sweetness)
- a pinch of salt
- zest of one large organic lemon (optional)
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon? or vanilla (optional)
- about 2 tablespoons mild extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400º F. With a whisk or a hand mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar until creamy.
Add the ricotta, salt, lemon zest and cinnamon (or vanilla).
Grease a baking pan (about 9 ½” and springform is easier) with butter or olive oil, dust with flour, pour the mixture in, and transfer into your pre-heated oven.
Bake at 400 F for the first 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 Fand bake for another 25 minutes.
Turn the oven off and allow the cassola to set inside, with the door open, for another 10 or 15 minutes.
It should be firmer and golden brown on the outside and very soft and moist inside, like a pudding. Serve warm.
You can also cook it in a greased non-stick or cast iron pan like a frittata, on the stovetop, flipping it once (this was probably the original version), or cook the bottom on the stovetop and the top in the oven under the broiler.
Serves- 4-6
https://dinnerinvenice.com/2011/12/18/cassola-the-ecumenical-pancake-not-just-dairy-very-dairy/
