I found myself with some leftover ricotta cheese recently and wanted to find a good way to use it up. Do you ever do that? Buy something for one use and find you have more than enough of it for something else? Happens to me all the time! I mean it's not like you can buy ricotta in a small container, even when you only need 1/2 cup, but I don't want to waste what's leftover either.
Not looking to repeat an Italian dish again, I wanted something sweet. I've made Mini-Ricotta Cheesecakes before and they are delicious, but I wasn't after that this time. I wanted blueberries and something, but what? And then I remembered a cake I'd seen awhile ago with a cake layer, fruit layer and ricotta cheese topping layer. Yep, that one sounded perfect so I set out to make it. Glad I did, it's delicious! (original recipe from King Arthur Flour).
Recipe
Batter
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 - 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Topping
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups ricotta cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
Method
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9 x 9 x 2-inch springform pan.
For the batter: In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the milk, shortening, egg and vanilla, beating till smooth. Spoon the batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter.
For the topping: In a small bowl, beat the eggs till frothy, then beat in the cheese, sugar and vanilla. Spread this mixture evenly over the blueberries.
Bake the cake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until it's golden brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool to lukewarm before serving.
**Optional - mix a few blueberries with 2 tbls of sugar and 1 tsp orange zest. Serve cake slices with berries and sugar/orange zest sprinkled on top.
Yield: 12 servings
Enjoy,
Mary
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