Ricotta Bake
Ingredients
4 servings
- Ricotta 500 g
- Eggs 2–3
- Sugar 1–2 tbsp (14–27 g)
- Corn starch 2–3 tbsp (20–29 g)
- Milk or cream 100 ml
- Lemon zest, vanillin or flavoring to taste
- Butter (for the pan) 1 tsp
- Powdered sugar, caramel sauce for serving
Step-by-step recipe
Making the batter
For a tasty and tender ricotta bake you need really fresh cheese. Most stores carry a high-quality imported product in 250–500 g packs — check the best-before date. To thicken the mixture we use corn starch and eggs. You can use regular 2.5–3.2% milk or cream, but then the dish will have more calories.
Open the cheese tubs and transfer the cheese to a deep bowl.
Beat the cheese until smooth. It is convenient to mix the batter with a mixer on low speed — you get a smooth, even mixture.
Add 1–2 tbsp of sugar (14–27 g) — that is to taste, you can skip the sugar altogether. Add lemon zest or some flavoring — rum, lemon, vanilla. Mix the ricotta again.
Pour in half a cup of milk (100 ml) or cream and stir.
Crack the eggs into the mixture. If you want a firmer bake, use three eggs instead of two. Mix thoroughly until completely smooth.
If needed, add a little more vanilla or lemon zest to mask the taste of the egg yolk.
Add the corn starch — two heaped tablespoons (29 g) to start — and stir. The mixture should have the consistency of thick sour cream. Add a little more starch if needed.
By the way, if you want the ricotta bake to have a pleasant yellowish color, add a tiny bit of food coloring.
Baking
A silicone cake pan is very handy for baking ricotta — the delicate bake comes away from the sides with no trouble at all.
Grease the inside of the pan with butter. A silicone pan is very soft and does not hold its sides well, which can make the delicate bake tear. So before pouring in the mixture, I set the soft pan inside a glass baking dish of a suitable size. It works perfectly. Pour all of the mixture into the pan.
Preheat the oven to 180°C and put the pan with the mixture in it. Bake for 40–45 mins — that is for this amount of ingredients. Baking time depends a lot on the volume, so go by how much the surface of the bake wobbles. If needed, bake longer, making sure the bottom and sides do not start to burn.
Serving
Take the finished bake out of the oven. Carefully loosen it from the sides of the pan with a small knife — it is unlikely to stick, but better safe than sorry. Cover the pan with a wooden board or a large flat plate and turn it over. Tap lightly on the bottom of the pan so the bake settles neatly onto the plate, then lift off the pan.
Dust the top with powdered sugar — put a little sugar in a small sieve and tap it to spread it over the surface, it sifts easily. Cut the bake into four servings and put the pieces on plates. As I said, it is better not to cut the bake with a knife — it will squash and crack. A cheese wire works perfectly; we use one to cut soft cheese.
If you like, dust it with more powdered sugar. It is exceptionally good drizzled with caramel sauce — it takes just a few minutes to make and goes very well with it. Decorate the top of the dessert with fresh berries or fruit slices before serving. Some people add a pinch of cinnamon or cocoa powder.
I recommend serving it with a cappuccino or warm milk — you will love it.
Calories and macros
300 kcal
Serving ≈ 150 g
- Protein14 g19% of kcal
- Fat17 g53% of kcal
- Carbs21 g28% of kcal
100 g205 kcalProtein 9.7 gFat 12 gCarbs 14.5 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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To Get It Right
If the ricotta is wet
If there is a lot of whey in the tub of ricotta for the bake, pour it off and drain the cheese in a sieve for about 15 minutes. Extra moisture makes the batter runny, and you will need more starch.
If you have no silicone pan
A regular glass or ceramic dish will do: grease it with butter and line the bottom with parchment — that way the delicate bake is easier to turn out without tearing.
With berries and fruit
A handful of berries or pieces of apple or banana can go straight into the batter for the bake, right in the pan. Even simpler — serve the bake with fresh berries, fruit slices, a pinch of cinnamon or cocoa.
How to store
Cover the cooled bake with plastic wrap and refrigerate — it keeps for 2–3 days. Cold, it is firmer and cuts more neatly.
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Questions and answers
How do you make a ricotta and cottage cheese bake?
You can replace part of the ricotta with cottage cheese, for example half and half. Press the cottage cheese through a sieve or blend it first, otherwise the bake will be grainy rather than tender.
Can you make a ricotta bake with semolina?
Yes: use 2–3 tbsp of semolina (24–36 g) instead of the starch and let the batter stand for 15–20 minutes so the semolina swells. The bake will be a little firmer.
How do you make a healthier ricotta bake?
You can leave out the sugar entirely — ricotta is slightly sweet on its own. Use milk instead of cream, and serve with fresh berries instead of caramel sauce.
What is the difference between ricotta and cottage cheese?
Ricotta is made from the whey left over from making mozzarella and other cheeses, and it is based on the protein lactalbumin rather than casein, as cottage cheese is. That is why ricotta is more delicate and slightly sweet, and a bake made with it is almost creamy.
Why does a ricotta bake sink?
A delicate batter made with starch and eggs sinks a little as it cools — that is normal. It sinks less if you do not beat the batter at high speed and let the bake stand for 10 minutes in the switched-off oven with the door ajar.