Kiddipedia
Recipe from Siciliano by Joe Vargetto
Serves 8
1 hour and 40 minutes
Mum used to make ricotta sometimes, because it was really hard to find when I was a child. We had to travel to Sunbury to buy it. Sometimes she made her own with warm milk and sap from the fig tree. The sap would curdle the milk and whatever came to the top she’d scoop off to make ricotta. Sometimes she’d make salted ricotta, other times she used it for sweet things,like this cake.
Ingredients
150g pine nuts
65g plain flour
225g unsalted butter
6 lemons
250g caster sugar
6 eggs, separated
300g fresh ricotta
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Butter a 25cm round tin and line with greased baking paper.
Finely grate the lemon zest and juice all 6 lemons. Combine the flour, pine nuts and lemon zest. Beat the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer until pale and light, then add the egg yolks, one by one. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture.
Place the ricotta in a bowl and lightly beat with a fork. Add the lemon juice. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the flour mixture and, finally, stir the ricotta mixture in.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in oven for 35–40 minutes. The cake is cooked when a skewer is inserted and comes out clean. Remove the cake from the tin while warm and cool on a cake rack.
