Ingredients:

For the crust:

1 cup plus 2 TBSPs flour

4 TBSPs Cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1/3 cup plus 1 TBSP sugar

4 1/2 TBSPs diced butter (cold)

1 egg (cold)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder 

If needed, 1 TBSP cold water

For the filling:

1 lb mascarpone

1/2 cup orange marmalade 

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips 

Maraschino cherries, halved

Optional: chocolate shavings to decorate

Directions:

Begin by making the pastry dough.

Sift together flour, cocoa and baking powder.

Set aside.

Place cold diced butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Using either a stand mixer or handheld one, mix on low until combined.

Add egg and vanilla.

Blend until incorporated.

Add flour mixture, a little at a time.

Dough should be crumbly, if not, add cold water, a little at a time, until achieving crumbly consistency.

Move dough to clean surface.

Gently knead dough by hand into a smooth ball.

Wrap dough with film wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes (or overnight).

Now on to the filling…

Place mascarpone, orange marmalade and chocolate chips in a separate bowl.

With a fork, mix all ingredients together until fully combined.

Cover and place in refrigerator until needed.

Remove dough from fridge and place on a lightly floured surface.

Flatten dough with your hands.

If too hard, wait 5 minutes.

Once dough is pliable, roll it out to about a 1/4” thickness using a rolling pin.

Sprinkle with a little flour as needed.

Using a 4” round cookie cutter, cut as many circles as possible.

Knead together all remaining scraps and roll out again.

Cut more circles.

Repeat until all dough is used.

You should have about 10 circles.

Grease a muffin pan and place each circle into each cavity.

Gently press middle of dough to bottom to achieve a little pie shell.

Pierce the bottoms with a fork so that they won’t puff up too much.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, place filling into a piping bag with a large star-shaped tip.

When pastry shells are totally cooled, fill each with the mascarpone mixture.

Place halved maraschino cherries on top of each cassatina.

Store covered in fridge until ready to serve.

Makes 10

TIPS:

I chose to give you a few tips in the body of this recipe to make sure you achieve the best outcome but I’ll add that you can easily double this recipe if you need a bigger amount of cassatine.

You will have leftover filling. No fear. It makes a delicious spread for toast, bagels, muffins, etc. 

The reason I called these “cassatine” is because the filling reminds me of the taste of Cassata. Of course, cassata uses sponge cake as the layers between the filling but I wanted something more chocolaty.