15 Oct Lemon Ricotta Olive Oil Cake
Recipes, Sweet
Lemon Ricotta Olive Oil Cake
15 October 2023
PREP TIME: 10 mins - Cook Time: 45 mins - Serves: 6-8
This cake hails from Sardinia. Full of lemons, ricotta, almond meal and olive oil it really is the ultimate Mediterranean cake. To add to its pleasures instead of cooking it in a regular cake tin you could cook it in a Bundt tin for something extra special.
A Lemon Ricotta Olive Oil cake is the sort of cake you just may be lucky enough to find dusted with sugar, waiting on your hotel breakfast table in the south of Italy. It is excellent with coffee. Perhaps it will appear at afternoon tea in the garden, approximating the saintly Lemon Drizzle cake with thin lemony icing drizzled over the top. It wouldn’t be unheard of though to have it dressed up with edible flowers and leaves and served at the end of a meal with a glass of Muscat or a Sauterne. Or, if you are as undisciplined as we are in our household, you may just leave it under a wire dome on a bench or sideboard, to simply help yourself any time you please.
ingredients
100g almond meal
150g self raising flour
200g sugar
250g ricotta
200ml olive oil
pinch of
salt
4 eggs
2 - 3 lemons, zested
For the Syrup
The juice of the zested lemons
70 g sugar
To Decorate
Edible leaves and flowers
Icing or caster sugar
Lemon Glaze (optional)
Lemon juice
Icing Sugar
equipment
Digital scales
Measuring spoons
23cm Bundt tin or spring - form cake tin
Food processor or Electric mixer or Large Mixing bowl and whisk
Small saucepan for the syrup
Spatula
Wire cake rack
METHOD
1. Prep
Bring the ricotta to room temperature
Move the oven rack to the centre of the oven
Preheat the oven to 170 C
Grease the cake tin well with a little olive oil
Measure all of the ingredients
Zest and juice the lemons.
2. Prepare the Mixture
Use a food processor, an electric mixer or a mixing bowl and whisk to beat the ricotta to get rid of any lumps.
Slowly pour in the olive oil on slow speed and incorporate it into the ricotta. The mixture will look curdled - no matter.
Wipe down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
Beat in the eggs.on slow speed
Add the remaining cake ingredients to the bowl with the lemon zest and mix until a smooth batter is formed.
Using a spatula, transfer the mixture to the prepared cake tin and spread evenly.
3. Cook
Place the tin into the preheated oven and bake until risen and golden - about 40 - 45 minutes
Slip a knife or skewer into the cake- it is cooked when it comes out clean.
4. To Finish
Allow the cake cool on a wire rack in its tin.
While the cake is cooling melt the sugar in the lemon juice in a small saucepan and allow to simmer for a few minutes.
Place the cake tin on a plate to collect any leaking syrup.
Pour the hot syrup over the cake and allow to cool completely.
When the cake is cool, remove it from the tin and transfer to a serving plate.
Sprinkle with sifted caster sugar and garnish with edible leaves and flowers and extra lemon zest or drizzle with thin lemon icing.
To make the lemon icing - combine strained lemon juice with icing sugar. Drizzle using a spoon, over the cake.
source
Recipe adapted by Elizabeth Peddey from recipe by Letiia Clark blog, November 12, 2021.
©Elizabeth Peddey
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