OMG Flavor cake
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Recently I decided to try this recipe I had been eyeing for a ricotta pie. It’s from a book called “the spice cook book” It’s one of those books that was written in the day when people actually cooked instead of re heating boxes of stuff and opening cans. I’ve tried only a few recipes from the book thus far but it has excellent flavor ideas. Spices make the world go around as far as I’m concerned 
I made this pie Monday night and brought it to school on Tuesday for our group meeting. It was a HUGE hit, my advisor very seriously wanted the recipe and two people independently said it was the best cheesecake they had ever tasted! I thought it was pretty good, I would like to try making it again though with some changes and see if I can make it better
Here is the original recipe for the cheesecake:
Torta Di Rocotta
3C (1.5lbs) Ricotta cheese
1/4 c sifted all purpose flour
2 T. orange zest
2T lemon zest
1T vanilla extract
1tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1T chopped citron
————————————————————–
1c sugar
Mix first 8 ingredients, In separate bowl beat eggs until foamy, add sugar and continue beating the mixture 2 min.
Fold into cheese mixture.
Ricotta Pie Pastry:
2C sifted all purpose flour
3T sugar
1/2 tsp salt
———————
3/4 C butter
2 large egg yolks
1-2 T water
Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter to crumb consistency. Add yolks and just enough water to form a dough.
Roll half the pastry dough to 1/8″ thick and in a circle 1″ larger than a 9″ layer cake pan. Fit into the pan leaving 1/2 inch of pastry around the rim. Fill with cheese mixture. Use remaining dough to roll and cut 1/2″ wide strips. Criss cross on top of the pie. trim turn under and flute the edges.
Bake at 350F oven for 1.5 hrs or until filling is firm and crust is browned.
MY MODIFICATIONS:
I used 2 C ricotta, it’s all I had.
I use only 1/2 tsp cinnamon, I didn’t want to overpower everything.
Left out the citron, I didn’t have any
I added the yolks directly to the cheese mix, then whipped the whites to soft peaks. Added sugar to the whites and again whipped, then folded it all together.
Because of separating the eggs, volume was definitely more than your average 9″ layer cake pan so I used a spring form pan. I needed about 2/3 of dough to make the crust and omitted the crisscross top.
Definitely make the specific crust recipe above. It’s not your average pie crust and the taste/texture is phenomenal with the filling, they compliemnt eachother really well. When I make it next I might skip the step of separating the eggs to compare the difference in texture. The flavor was just right but cutting it etc it is a little crumbly. I wonder if all the egg separating made it too fluffy for the structure, OR my other idea is to add a small bit of plain cream cheese to give it a bit more glue between the ricotta. (not too much though because the ricotta flavor is mild and its the subtle difference from cream cheese that helps make this recipe stand out)