This is based on a recipe out of the River Cafe Cook Book, published way back in 1995
Ingredients
- 125 g (4.5oz) toasted hazelnuts
- 125 g (4.5 oz) ricotta cheese
- 112 g (4 oz) salted butter, softened
- 125 g (4.5 oz) golden caster sugar but it can be any caster sugar
- 4 eggs, separated
- The finely grated zest of 3 lemons
- 65 g (2.1/4 oz) plain flour or for a lighter cake you can halve that amount and put in 32g
- 150g(6 oz) best quality bitter-sweet chocolate, grated
Tip: in this recipe it says you go and get your hazelnuts and toast them in the oven uh well I’m not going to put the big oven on I don’t really want to be toasting anything today so Waitrose and probably Tesco’s they sell Ready chopped roasted hazelnuts job done so no need for to get the blender out and start chopping them up or anything like that in there I’ve got
Method
Preheat the oven to 180?C/350?F/Gas 4, I used my Ninja and preheated it to 175g
Butter a 30 x 5 cm (12 x 2 in) cake tin, and line with greaseproof paper.
In your mixing bowl add the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer mix until pale and light
Add the egg yolks one by one.
In a separate large bowl beat the ricotta lightly with a fork and add you lemon zest.
Add the chopped nuts. This is going to be quite a textured cake the Italian cakes do seem to be quite textured
Fold the nut mix into the eggs and butter mix and sieve in the flour
In yet another bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.have to reach stock soft peaks. We’re not making meringue it’s just got to be soft to fold in to our mix. We need to lift it and get lots of air in there.
Fold the beaten egg whites into you nutty cheese mix
Spoon into the prepared cake tin
Bake in the preheated oven or Ninja for 35 minutes until set.
Remove from the tin, leave for 5 minutes
Whilst still warm, cover with the chocolate, which will immediately melt.
Add bit of icing sugar if you wish
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