The rollò, or rollò nisseno, or ricotta roll from Caltanissetta (from the French "roulé"), is a typical dessert from the Nisseno area, produced by local pastry chefs. It is consumed year-round, as it is not tied to any specific event or occasion.
This dessert, along with the ricotta raviola, originated in Caltanissetta.[1]
The rollò likely emerged in the last decades of the 19th century when the influence of Swiss pastry-making arrived in Caltanissetta through pastry chefs like Luigi Caflisch in Palermo, Alessandro Caviezel, and Ulrico Greuter in Catania.[6][7]
The rollò is structurally similar but not ingredient-wise to the Swiss roll—a type of sponge cake rolled and filled with cream or jam invented in Central Europe in the 19th century—the rollò nisseno also resembles an international tradition of rolled desserts found in many countries, including Italy's Christmas log. However, the absolute uniqueness of the rollò nisseno remains due to typical Sicilian pastry ingredients such as sheep's ricotta and pasta reale.[citation needed]
Ingredients
A sectioned rollò
Whole eggs; flour, ground almonds, sugar, bitter cocoa powder that characterizes the sponge cake that in turn rolls the sheep ricotta and the heart of marzipan (marzipan).
In addition, honey, green marzipan, sweetened and sifted ricotta, dark chocolate and/or chopped pistachios.[8]
Some pastry chefs cut the rolls horizontally so as to have a constant thickness of the cake, others even obliquely so as to have a thinner part.
The thickness of the green marzipan heart varies, the thickness of the chocolate sponge cake varies, the garnish varies with pistachio grains with or without dark chocolate grains.[9]
^Lucia Dolce (28 June 2007). "La cucina siciliana" (in Italian). www.ecapcl.it. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2024.
