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Everyone will love this lemon ricotta cake since it’s easy to make and even better to eat.
Italy’s Favorite Flavor
Southern Italy loves it’s lemons whether in decor or in food. Some of the best tasting lemon cakes or cookies I’ve eaten come from Italy. They know how to do lemon!
I’m a lemon freak. As a result, I love this lemon ricotta cake because its intensely lemon. It is right up there with Britain’s favorite–lemon drizzle cake. I think it’s the bright tart/sweet flavor that I find so intoxicating.
The ingredients are fairly common and you might have most of them on hand.
Use Up That Ricotta
Did you recently make a lasagna and have ricotta left over? I never use the whole container when I make it so I always have leftover. This is a great place to use it up.
The only caveat here is you have to use the whole milk variety. Apparently you need the full whack of fat for the cake to work. I always buy that variety so I’ve got that covered. However, if you don’t have any on hand and need to buy it, get the whole milk one.
Just an aside–even though Italian cheesecake is made with ricotta, this is not a cheesecake. It’s texture is more like that of a torte. It doesn’t rise much and it’s a bit dense. It’s supposed to be so don’t think that you did something wrong if you make it. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Lemons
You’ll need three of these for this cake. It takes the zest of all of them and the juice of one.
What I do here with the bald lemons is I juice them and freeze the juice for future use. Lemon lovers will always find a use for this!
The Recipe
Lemon Ricotta Cake
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 lemons zest only
- 1 lemon juice only
- 1 cup full-fat ricotta
- 2 tbs full-fat sour cream
- 1 1/4 cups sifted flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbs baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Spray a 10-inch/25 cm springform pan with non-stick spray and wrap the outside of the pan in a double thickness of aluminum foil. Place on a baking sheet and set aside..
- In a small bowl, stir together the flour, salt and baking powder; set aside.
- Place oil, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and zest in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed until well combined.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well mixed. Now mix in the ricotta and sour cream, blending well.
- Add the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool completely and dust top with confectioner's (icing) sugar.
