CREATIVE COOKING IN THE TIME OF CORONA
a blog about food
ITALIAN LEMON RICOTTA CAKE
There are certain foods in Kuching, things I was able to get easily in Sydney, that are so expensive here that I resigned myself to doing without them. One of those things is ricotta cheese. No way am I paying RM50 (AUD16.07; GBP £8.50; USD $11.81) for a small tub of imported ricotta loaded with preservatives! But this never-ending pandemic has seen me doing an extraordinary lot of Googling and, much to my ecstatic delight, I discovered how to make my own. It's so easy!! And it's so much nicer than the store-bought variety. The downside is you have to use it up within 2 or 3 days (No preservatives!) So this is a recipe for a beautiful lemon ricotta cake, using olive oil instead of the regular butter... and homemade ricotta. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere where you don't have to mortgage your house to buy it, and you prefer to just pick it up in the shop, make sure you get the traditional grainy ricotta not the smooth one.)
INGREDIENTS
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150g caster sugar
2 eggs
zest from 1 lemon
juice from same lemon (about 4 tbsp)
150ml olive oil
250g self-raising flour
250g traditional ricotta cheese
Sieved icing sugar to serve
METHOD
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Pre-heat oven to 180C.
Grease and line a 7" (about) 18cm round cake tin with baking paper.
Put caster sugar, eggs, lemon zest and juice and olive oil into the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a hand-held one) and beat on medium high for about 4 or 5 minutes until mixture is lighter and voluminous.
Add flour and ricotta and gently mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until mixture is combined. You should still be able to see the lumps of the ricotta.
Bake in pre-heated oven for about 1 hour or until the top is golden and a little cracked on top.
Cool in tin for about 10 minutes. Remove from tin and dust with sieved icing sugar
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HOMEMADE RICOTTA (make day before)
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Always use full fat milk for this recipe. Bring 1.25 litres of milk to a gentle boil on medium-low. Add 1.5 tsp sea salt flakes and mix well. Add 3 tbsp lemon juice. Stir again. You'll see the milk immediately start to curdle. Turn off the heat and cover for at least half an hour. Now here, most recipes tell you to line a sieve with cheesecloth and place over a bowl. But cheesecloth is not easy to get in Kuching so I just used a very fine sieve, placed it over a bowl and emptied the contents of the saucepan into the sieve. The sieve will catch the curds while the whey drains into the bowl. Empty the whey a few times (some folks save this because it's great protein and athletes, or anyone who wants to gain muscle mass and strength while losing fat. They drink it or use it in recipes). Allow the ricotta to drain for 8-10 hours in the fridge and then place the luscious white curds into a lidded container in the fridge until you're ready to bake this.
Or make lasagna.. or just have it on toast with raspberry jam!