LEMON RICOTTA CAKE

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.