Torta Di Ricotta - Adapted from Gourmet Traveller

I love Italian food.  I cook a lot of it.  I don't have an Italian nonna, so most of my knowledge of Italian food come from friends, and cook books.

I must admit since Italian food is so popular, it has changed a bit since migrating to the new world, just like all the other cuisines from the old world.

One of my recent collection was The Italian Cookbook, by Australian Gourmet Traveller.  It's a rustic torta, and I have been wanting to try out for a while.

I bought a kilo of fresh ricotta during the weekend, after making some potato ricotta smoked salmon patties, I decided I still have enough ricotta to do my torta.  Recipe adapted to suit my pantry, I don't have dried figs, and I did add mascapone which was not in the original recipe, used walnuts instead of hazelnuts.  And it's a bigger torta, so I didn't have enough left over pastry to do the cross over stripes on top, but instead, cut out some hearts.  I also used lemon myer, instead of oranges as I have a tree load.

Torta Di Ricotta

Fillings:
100g raisins
40ml masala
juice of one lemon Myer
zest of one lemon Myer

750g fresh ricotta
250g fresh mascapone
2 tbsp honey
110g sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
100g roasted walnuts, roughly chopped.

Pastry:
185g plain flour
125g cold butter, coarsly chopped, plus extra for greasing
55g caster sugar
1 egg, separated

Method:

1. Pulse flour, butter, sugar and egg yolk together with a pinch of salt in a food processor till it's just coming together, knead mixture till smooth and roll between 2 sheets of plastic wraps into a large disc, put in fridge for an hour.
2. While the pastry is resting, mix the juice and the masala, soak the raisins for 30 minutes.
3. Mix ricotta, mascapone, honey, egg in a bowl, mix till smooth, I used my bench top mixer. Fold through the lemon zest, the walnut and the soaked raisins with the liquid.

4. Preheat oven to 190C.  Roll pastry whilst still in plastic wrap to 34cms round. Remove top layer of wrap and invert pastry into the tart tin, I used a deep 10" loose bottom tart tin. 
5. Spoon ricotta mixture into the tin and trim the edges of the pastry and roll out the left over pastry.  I didn't have enough to do the criss cross, so I cut out some hearts....

6. Brush pastry with a bit of egg white and bake for 40-45 minutes or until golden. brown. 

7. And as most of the Italian tortas, dust with icing sugar and serve warm or in room temperature...

Buon Appetito!

Blueberry Ricotta Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache

This is a rather dense slice, great for afternoon tea or morning tea, it's not extremely sweet.  A couple of weeks ago, I made some blueberry butter cream, and I had some left over, about a cup, that's stored away in the freezer.

Cake:

1 cup blueberry butter cream (it's sweet enough and there's no extra sugar in the cake)
2 large eggs
100g ricotta cheese
200g self raising flour
200ml milk

Ganache
80g Dark Chocolate - 70% cocoa
120ml thickened cream

The whole thing is rather easy.  Warm up the butter cream a little, so it will soften up, beat up the eggs with the butter cream, mix in milk and sift in flour. Fold in the ricotta cheese.  I put it in a greased square tin, because I want to make slices. Bake in 190C oven for around 30-40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
To make ganache, I simple just bring the cream to a slow boil and pour over cut up chocolate chunks.  Once smooth, pour over the cooled cake.

Cut into slices, and enjoy with coffee or tea.

Crostata di Ricotta - November Daring Baker's Challenge, Take 1

November's Daring Baker challenge is fun, it's crostatas... Italian tarts.  Pasta frolla and hmm whatever topping you fancy!


I actually made 2 crostatas, Crostata di Ricotta, Ricotta tarte, and Crostata di Mele, Classic Apple tarte. I love making tarts and the pasta frolla dough is lovely, pastry is short, sweet and yummy.


I'm posting the Crostata di Ricotta first as this is the one featured in the Daring Kitchen page.

Thanks Simona from Briciole for this wonderful challenge, and the wonderful crostata recipes!

My yummy Crostata di Ricotta:


Pastry – Pasta Frolla:

200g plain flour (or 150g plain flour 50g almond meal)
100g cold butter diced
1 tbsp orange zest
1 egg, separated
70g castor sugar
1 pinch of salt

Fillings:

100g pitted dates, diced
40g candied peels, diced
50ml masala
375g ricotta cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g mascarpone cheese or any cream cheese
110g castor sugar
100g toasted almond (or any walnut, hazelnut etc)
3 eggs


Method:


Use food processor, pulse to break down butter mix till it resembles bread crumbs.
Gently work the flour mixture to form a dough, don’t over work dough, wrap in cling wrap and put in fridge to rest for an hour.

Meanwhile, put chopped dates and peels in masala to soak for half an hour.
Whisk eggs and sugar, add in ricotta, cream mascarpone till smooth.
Fold in the fruits and almond.
Roll out pastry in 2 layers of plastic. Gently transform to a loose bottom tarte tin. Wrap the excess pastry in glad wrap and put in fridge.

Blind bake tarte shell with rice weight in 200C oven for 10 minutes. Cool.

Fill up with the filling, make stripes to go across, and bake in 180C oven for 40-45 minutes.

 

I did use the reduced fat cheeses for healthy reasons....
 

Crostata to be served warm...

A Simple Ricotta Cake with Walnut, Torta Di Ricotta

Well, maybe another day, I'd do things different because I will make a proper short crust pastry base.  I guess rushing is not good for cakes...

I used biscuit base this time, and not so impressed - for a quick Torta, it's not bad, but I think I have just reminded myself why I haven't been buying biscuits and cookies?

Torta Di Ricotta – Simple Version



150g sweet biscuit, scotch fingers, short bread etc
50g butter
500g ricotta cheese
Juice of 1 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon
200g sugar
3 eggs
250g mascarpone cheese
1 tbsp Marsala
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method


Crush biscuit and butter, cover the lined 20cm spring form tin.
Put it back in fridge, chill to set.
Separate eggs and leave them in room temperature.
Whisk egg whites, till light and fluffy and add sugar, gradually, form a firm meringue.
Whisk all the cheeses in a separate bowl, with egg yolks.
Add lemon zest and juice, and marsala and vanilla essence.
Fold in egg mixture with the cheese, fill up the spring form.

Bake in 190c for 50 minutes and then cool, and leave in fridge over night to set.

Double Cheese Pasta Bake with Chorizos

Tuesday evenings are usually a rush for us, the boys will go for their music lessons, that's hubby's guitar and the boy's piano lessons.  So everything have to be quick and pasta is actually the most common dish on Tuesday nights.


Tonight, I made a simeple pasta bake, with enough vegetables and my favourite Ricotta cheese and Mozzarella cheese...


Double Cheese Chorizos Pasta Bake
2 Raw Chorizos sausages
5 Sprigs of parsley
1 Green Capsicum
1 zucchini
2 medium ripe tomatos
250g Ricotta cheese
100g Mozzarella cheese
Salt and Ground white pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil & 1.5 tbsp extra
1 small onion
300g big shell pasta
Water to boil pasta
Extra salt


Method
In a big pot, boil pasta as per instruction of the packet, add bit of salt to taste to water, simmer till it’s al dente.
At the mean time, slice chorizos, onion, capsicum and zucchini and tomatoes.
Finely chop parsley (I usually use continental parsley)
Drain pasta in colander and put it back into the pot, add 1/3 cup olive oil and stir through.
In a non stick frying pan, add the extra 1.5 tbsp olive oil, gently sauté the onion and capsicum in medium heat and add chorizos, sauté till almost cooked.
Add these to the pasta, and add tomatoes, stir through ricotta cheese and salt and pepper, mix well.
Put in ceramic baking dish and top with shredded mozzarella cheese.
Bake in 190C oven for 25-30 minutes.

This is a single serve baking dish actually, but I still prefer it in the plate:

Ricotta Creme Fraiche Scones, Ghostsword Fish Sweet Curry and My Almost Perfect Loaf

I thought this day will never come true - when mother in law mentioned the old school home cooks in the old days can just whisk up some batches of scones when unexpected guests arrive - they'd make the guests cups of tea, seat the guests, chatting away with a scone dough, and minutes later, the perfect afternoon tea with the perfect scones and jam and cream.

I made 2 batches of sourdough breads during the weekend, but all used up for lunches etc and we didn't have any to freeze for the coming week's brekky... Both hubby and I have brekky on the go, so basically, some yoghurts and some home baked goods. 10pm last Sunday night, I said to hubby, well, I have to make some scones.

I didn't know what to make - flavour? I do know I have some ricotta cheese, some creme fraiche, I have to use up, and yes, loads of bananas.

So, I mashed up 2 bananas, add the rest of the ricotta cheese about 150g and all the 250g creme fraiche into the 3.5 cup self raising flour, whisked in an egg, and rubbed in 25g butter. Must say the mixture was a bit too moist to my liking so I did add a bit more dry flour as I go. Ah, I added a bit of cinneman powder and all spice, 1/2 tsp Bi-carb soda to balance the acid, before the wet stuff went in, and put in quite a generous amount (1 cup?) of sultanas.

Baked for 25 minutes whilst baking my son's school lunch (the weekly loaf) and they came out quite nicely - surprising fluffy... Finally, I can get a batch of scones out without any recipes, using whatever in my fridge... So, I'm an old school cook now? And really happy with my loaf this week.... I make my son a loaf of bread each week for his lunch box, and it hasn't worked all that well in the last week or so, but finally, I'm back on track. I just want to give him preservative free home baked goods, and I know he likes his white bread, but if I'm baking, I can just sneak in 3/4 cup of whole meal flour...

Alright, today's dinner, I have been wondering what to do. Week day nights, dinners are usually rushed. We didn't have time to do much in between music lessons, home works (for children of course) and other bits and pieces, and of course I only have 1 hour or so to put dinner on the table and can't prepare anything during the day.

I bought some ghostsword fish - wasn't quite sure about the fish, just some fillets from the supermarket, so I think, maybe a light sweet curry. Something warm, but not heavy, we had the bacon hock soup last night.

First of all, I cut the fish fillets into 2" squares, dusted with ginger powder, white pepper, bit of salt and some tapioca flour, and let it sit for half an hour or so, whilst getting the rice and veggies ready.

In the pot, I heated up some veggie oil, sauted 1 sliced red onion, 1 sliced ginger, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 sliced fresh red chillie with no seeds (I did say mild today), until slightly cooked, then I add 2 tsp of powders (a mixture tumeric, corriander, cummin, cardemon, nutmeg, cinnemon, bits and pieces I found in my spice box, I do use ground spice as it's easier for me) and no chillie powder - normally I'd add more but I wasn't sure if I would use the same sauce for the children, and I do know they can't handle the spices all that well.

I added a can of coconut milk, some white wine, 2tsp of fish sauce, 1 tsp of salt and 1tsp of raw sugar (if you have palm sugar, use that), added in some chopped lemon grass and 3 kaffir lime leaves, a small slice of lemon, and let it simmer.

Meanwhile in another non stick frying pan, I heated up some oil and shallow fried the fish pieces to almost cooked by themselves, and set aside. I chose to do the fish separately because they'd keep the shape better if I fried them by themselves first, and also I do have a choice to seperate kids and adult meals - as it turned out, the sauce (even I toned down) was still to spicey for the children, so I used another pot to tone down further for them with their fish pieces...

I added one tomato cut up in chunk to the pot, and added the fish pieces and a sprig of corriander for the adults.

after 15-20 minutes, the sauce became thicker, and I served up with steamed rice and veggies. Simple food, warm enough for winter and not to heavy.