Passport & Plate - Livia's ricotta cake
Italy | Monday, March 10, 2014 | 
flickr photos
Ingredients
Cake:?
2 eggs beaten?
100g butter, melted?
150g caster sugar
?zest of 1/2 orange and 1/2 lemon?
250g cup self raising flour?
1/3 cup of milk (plus a bit more if needed)?
1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence?
Ricotta filling: ?
750g ricotta?
125g caster sugar
80g – 100g sultanas pre-soaked in grappa (if you don’t have grappa, use brandy or warm water if you don’t want to use alcohol), drained?
40g pine nuts?
2 eggs, lightly beaten beaten?
2 1/2 tablespoons self raising flour?
zest 1/2 lemon
zest 1/2 orange (or 1 tablespoon candied orange peel)
Makes one large rectangular cake; can be easily halved to make a single loaf.
How to prepare this recipePreheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line and grease a large rectangular tin 38cm x 35cm (or two loaf tins).
Place all the ingredients for ricotta filling in a medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon. Set aside. Add more flour if it appears too runny. It should be fairly firm.
Place all the cake ingredients into another medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon.
To assemble the cake, spoon half the cake mixture into the base of the tray. If it is too difficult to spread, add a bit more milk to achieve the desired consistency. Next place the ricotta mixture on top of this. Smooth with the back of a spoon so that it is flat. Now add the other half of the cake mixture as a thin layer over the top. You should have just enough to cover it.
Bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 160 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool in the pan before removing. Don’t worry if the top looks a little cracked.
Serve at room temperature. It is even better the day after it was baked, straight from the fridge.
The story behind this recipeThere was always ricotta in the fridge while I was growing up. Papa’ would often have it on bread with some of mamma Livia’s home made jam for breakfast. Mamma would use it in either sweet or savoury dishes, telling stories of making ricotta when she was a young girl during World War II. The family had to leave the town they were living in after their house was bombed. They returned to the family farm in a tiny town in the Veneto region. With her mother and sisters, she helped to run the farm whilst her brothers and father worked the land. She has fond memories of making ricotta - “There is nothing quite like fresh home made ricotta” she would say.
My favorite dish with ricotta and the one that appeared most often on the family table was her amazing ricotta cake. To watch her make it was a joy because she added the ingredients by heart, using non-standard cups and mixing it all with a wooden spoon. When I watched her make the cake a few years back, trying to write the recipe down, I had to stop her to measure what she’d added in metric cups or on the kitchen scale. She thought it was amusing that I didn’t just “know” how much to add by checking the consistency, which was the way she had been taught by her mother.
What makes her ricotta cake so special is the delicious ricotta filling, which has orange and lemon zests plus the secret ingredient - grappa soaked sultanas. There is always a jar of these heavenly “drunken” sultanas in both my fridge and my mother’s – the practice stemming back from the days when my father used to make illegal grappa in the garage in a copper still, before I was born. I admit to tasting a lot more of the filling than I should when I make it.
Livia’s ricotta cake takes me right back to Sunday lunches, with family and friends. Whilst the men would play cards, the women would prepare the food in the kitchen, sharing stories of life back in Italy, before the journey to Australia. It is part of my family memory and my food memory.
