Whole-milk ricotta is my new favorite baking ingredient. It makes for such moist baked goods. This is a glazed cake, baked in a loaf pan. Enjoy!
Lemon Ricotta Cake
Serves 10
1 ¼ cups
all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon
baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher
salt
4 regular or
Meyer lemons (zest and juice)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs at
room temperature
1/3 cup butter,
melted and cooled to room temperature
1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole-milk
ricotta at room temperature
2 tablespoons
half-and-half
1 cup powdered
sugar
1. Butter
8 ½inch by 4 ½inch loaf pan. Then line it with parchment paper, letting paper
overhang on long sides and leaving short sides without paper.
2. In
medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In
large bowl, combine granulated sugar and lemon zest from lemons. Use your clean
fingers to rub zest into sugar until the sugar is texture of wet sand.
4. Add ¼ cup of freshly squeezed and strained lemon
juice and stir.
5. Whisk
in eggs, one at a time. Then whisk in cooled butter and vanilla.
6. In
small bowl or 2-cup measuring cup, combine ricotta and half-and-half. Stir
until smooth.
7. To
egg mixture, gently stir in one-third of dry ingredients just until combined.
Stir in half of ricotta mixture. Repeat, ending with dry ingredients and never
overstirring.
8. Pour
cake batter into prepared pan and bake in middle of 350°F. oven for 50 to 60
minutes or until cake tests done.
9. Let cake cool 10 minutes
before running a knife around its edges and then using parchment paper as
handles to lift cake out pan. Allow cake to cool on wire rack.
10. When cake is cooled, make
glaze by sifting powdered sugar into medium-sized bowl.
11. Whisk in 2 tablespoons
lemon juice, 1 tablespoon at a time, to make thick glaze that is pourable.
12. Pour glaze over cooled
cake, allowing glaze to dribble down sides of cake. Serve thick slices, perhaps with a few fresh berries on the side.