Last April Elizabeth Minchilli posted this strawberry ricotta cake on her blog. It took off and soon Instagram was flooded with images of strawberry ricotta cakes.
I decided to bake a version of it last week. Here in Ontario the strawberries are not quite ready but the rhubarb is in full swing. I decided to tweak Minchilli's recipe and make a rhubarb version.
To help me with that I pulled out the Flavour Bible. A million years ago (12 actually) I was a part of a cooking group that used this resource extensively. I haven't really used it since but now that i am retired I find myself flipping through it as I contemplate recipes of my own. The Food Bible breaks apart food flavours and identifies flavour combinations that work well together and those that do not. I looked up Rhubarb and saw that orange zest and cardamom work well with rhubarb. That became my flavour profile for the recipe.
You can chop the rhubarb up into bite sized pieces. I sliced it into lengths (large pieces slices into quarter lengths) because I wanted to try to arrange them attractively on the top of the cake. You'll see I only sort of succeeded. I'll need to keep experimenting with the 'look'.
While the look wasn't as attractive as I was hoping for, the taste was pretty amazing!
Enjoy.
Rhubarb Ricotta Cake
¼ sticks/ 140 gr unsalted butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup fresh whole milk ricotta
2 tablespoons whole fat plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
grated orange zest (from one orange)
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cardamom
three stalks rhubarb, cut into quarters - length-wise
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 350F/ 180C.
Butter and flour a 9-inch spring form pan
If you have a stand mixer it makes things easier.
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each one in.
Next add the ricotta and the yoghurt, vanilla and orange zest and mix well.
Mix the dry ingredients together, then add them to the wet mixture, just folding them in until mixed. Don’t over beat.
Pour the dough into buttered cake tin, and level it out with a spoon. Place the rhubarb pieces on top of the batter, cut side up, pressing them in a bit. Sprinkle the cake with the sugar and bake for 40 minutes.
Let cool, remove from pan and serve with whipped cream or creme fraiche.
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