Cassata is an ice-cream dessert traditionally made by layering ice cream with cake and freezing it in a mold.
The dessert is associated with Sicily and is related to the broader cassata family of layered sweets. Ice-cream cassata commonly uses several colors or flavors of ice cream, along with sponge cake, candied fruit or liqueur depending on the regional recipe. The molded presentation is one of its most recognizable features.
Cassata is often confused with cassata cake, which may be a ricotta-based Sicilian confection or a later cake variation. Recipes differ substantially between Sicily, Italy and South Asia, where “cassata” can refer to a layered ice-cream cake. What unites the ice-cream versions is the combination of frozen layers and cake rather than a simple scoop-based serving.