favorite ricotta cake recipe

[Kim WB]

looking for a great recipe..have the traditional one w/ arborio...anyone have any others...considering variations before I start planning to make my tried and true...

[maggiethecat]

Kim:

Check out the Dessert of the Month in the current MS "Living" Or her website. Sounds like what you may be looking for.

[Aquitaine]

Kim,

Are you (still) looking for:

[*]Ricotta cheesecake

[*]Budino di ricotta (a crustless cheesecake)

[*]Crostata di ricotta (made with pasta frolla), or

[*]Traditional Easter cake, which uses cream of farina or whole wheat kernels?

There are a zillion out there, and I have a bunch of recipes...(most of which I haven't tried, unfortunately) I could pass something along if you're still interested and we could narrow it down to type.

[suzz]

Have you had any luck with your cheesecake search? There's a great book, "125 Cheesecake Recipes" by George Geary that you may find inspiring. You don't happen to be from NJ? I am a journalist preparing a story for a NJ newspaper on cheesecake, and would love to interview someone local on the subject.

[slbunge]

Just thought I would resurrect this thread. We're trying to zero in on a decent ricotta cake recipe for mothers' day.

Right now, we're leaning toward a recipe from the original Moosewood cookbook. It is crustless and flavored with lemon and almond.

[Wendy DeBord]

Can you clairfy a little more.........when you say ricotta cake are meaning a cheesecake or other?

And what's you description of a "decent ricotta cake" so we understand exactly what your looking for?

Thanks

[slbunge]

Can you clairfy a little more.........when you say ricotta cake are meaning a cheesecake or other?

And what's you description of a "decent ricotta cake" so we understand exactly what your looking for?

Thanks

Yeah, I was a bit vague, wasn't I?

I'm looking for a baked cheesecake made with ricotta. Trying to go with something that isn't very sweet and matches well with strawberries. Most recipes I have seen have either lemon or citron. Seems to be a 50/50 split between an anise flavor (usually anisette) or almond, not sure which I would prefer.

[Wendy DeBord]

I was going thru my recipe file last night searching for Mothers Day ideas and came across a recipe I saved for ricotta cake from Martha Stewart. It has a photo and a nice description too-I've never made anything quite like this-but it does look very tastie!

They describe it as "soft as a down pillow, creamy like a custard, and lightly flavored with vanilla and cinnamon." They serve it with strawberries. Do you have any interest in me posting the recipe-since I can't give a personal reccomendation with it? Also you might find it at her site, she calls it a"Pastiera with strawberry sauce". HTH?

[Joni]

Go to Recipezaar -- Mean Chef has a good one posted. Or else in the Tried & True at Fine Cooking Cook's Talk Forum -- it is posted there under the T&T Recipes.

[slbunge]

Do you have any interest in me posting the recipe-since I can't give a personal reccomendation with it? Also you might find it at her site, she calls it a"Pastiera with strawberry sauce". HTH?

Yes. Please post, I'd like to see it. I looked at her site and didn't get any hits when I searched 'pastiera'. Thanks for thinking of me while combing the recipes.

[Wendy DeBord]

This is Martha Stewarts recipe. Of which, I for one have had great success with her baking recipes.

Bring to a boil in a large sauce pan:

1 qt. whole milk

Stir in:

3/4 c. arborio rice

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 vanilla bean split

Reduce heat and cook rice until it's very tender and absorbed all the liquid. You'll need to attend to stirring occasionally.

Remove pan from heat.

Add:

3/4 c. sugar

Cover and cool down to room temp. Take out vanilla bean before preceeding with the rest of the cake.

To make this into a cake use a 8" buttered and floured pan, and a 350f oven temp.

Combine the rice mixture with:

3 pounds fresh ricotta, previously drained overnight.

3 eggs

3 yolks

1/2 c. sugar (this is additional to above)

They give aprox. 65 to 70 minutes to bake. If the top takes on too much color before it's set, cover the top with foil while finishing the bake.

This really is a custard more then a cake, yet the photo shows a cleanly sliced cake. It's actually gotten to me, I'll definately try this recipe when I can work it into my schedule. If you make this-PLEASE come back and tell me what you think of it, o.k.? thinking more.........you know this could be seasoned a number of ways for variety. Good luck.

[mjc]

Here's a link to Mario Batalis Pastiera Napoletana. This is a traditional easter cake made with faro and riccota. I made it a few weeks ago and it tasted great and had an intersting texture. It was, however, incrediblly ugly--I think thats how it was supposed to look though.

Edited May 5, 2004 by mjc (log)

[slbunge]

This really is a custard more then a cake, yet the photo shows a cleanly sliced cake. It's actually gotten to me, I'll definately try this recipe when I can work it into my schedule. If you make this-PLEASE come back and tell me what you think of it, o.k.? thinking more.........you know this could be seasoned a number of ways for variety. Good luck.

sinclair: Thanks so much for the recipe, it will be the one I make. In the photo, can you get a sense of the cake's thickness? I have 9"x1" 'cheesecake pans' (lift-out bottom) and I'm thinking that 3lbs of ricotta filling will not fit. That may force me to invest in a new pan. Not the end of the world. If so, do you think I should go with a lift-out bottom version? Seems like either that or a springform would make it much easier to get to a platter for serving.

mjc: Thanks for the link to the Batali recipe. Looks interesting but was hoping for something without a crust. Funny comment about it being ugly.

[Wendy DeBord]

Martha uses a 8" springform pan, recipe feeds 8. Her cake looks nicely tall, but proportions in photos can be decieving. The center of this cake deflates-thats expected and she dusts it with xxxsugar, serves with strawberries.

3 lb's of cheese does fit into a 9" springform........and according to Marthas dirrections it even fits into a 8".

[slbunge]

Had a successful run at making the Martha Stewart recipe posted by Sinclair above.

I had initially loaded the batter into an 8" springform but there was far too much. and I quickly buttered and floured at 10" springform. Here is the cheesecake out of the oven, cooling. As you can see, it is short of the lip of a 10" springform but not by much. I Too bad because I think the 10" resulted in a slightly drier than ideal exterior when the center was near perfect. I think the 8" pan with less surface area would have solved this problem.

Here is the cake after chilling overnight and then unmolding. Sorry about the uber-dramatic lighting but I couldn't get the flash to work. Final presentation had a few strawberries on top.

(I should have taken a picture of a plated slice but it the interior looks exactly what you see on the edge. We found it cut nicely with a hot knife.)

In all, the cheesecake was a hit. The sugar, cinnamon and vanilla were well balanced using the recipe proportions exactly (I thought about adding lemon zest to the milk/rice but I held back). The cake was not sweet which is sort of what I was looking for. It had great texture and mouthfeel because of the cooked rice. The color was not unpleasant but not the very smooth off-white of many cheesecakes, it was sort of tinged brown (in person, it is decidedly less yellow than the picture of the cake in the pan above).

We served it with sliced strawberries that had been marinated in a bit of sugar and balsamic vinegar. Mother-in-law asked for the recipe which is a decent gauge of success.

Thanks for the recipe. I hope you have a chance to give it a try.

[Wendy DeBord]

Hum, it's interesting to read your results and opinions. In the photo which accompanies the recipe- her cake looks quite different then yours. Her's appears to be more souffle like, it's much darker on the exterior and definately colapses more in the center.

I'm glad to read you liked it, it sounds good to me................but now I'm wondering why the differences. Did the food stylist alter the recipe or could there be a mis-print? I usually have good results with her recipes and they typically do look alot like the example shown. Oh well, the taste is the most important factor.

P.S. Thanks for posting the pictures along with your opinion, it really does add alot!