Ricotta loaf: It finally worked perfectly...due to my inept shopping skills.

marilynfl

Moderator
I've been making this ever since Traca posted Giada's recipe (Traca's is in T&T with comments), yet it is one of those recipes that taunts me. It appears simple enough in recipe form, but for some reason always collapses, like a soap opera diva desperate for attention. I've tried cake pans, bread pans, springform and silicon; tried adjusting the food elements; tried drying out the ricotta. All to no avail.

But yesterday it was the simple fact that I forgot to replenish my "cake flour" stash that made all the difference.

Based on prior experience, I had already girded my loins with the expectation of a sunken, collapsed bread....solid around the edges, but weak at the middle. You know, like my body shape.

But because I only had 2 cups of cake flour left and the recipe requires three, I finished it off with a cup of all-purpose. This, by definition, has a higher protein count and apparently that provided a stronger gluten structure.

All I know is my two lemon-scented bread loaves rose and stayed risen. It also developed that lovely little crack down the middle that is the bane of my will-power. (Dirty Little Secret Revealed: I once ate the entire TOP off a loaf of banana bread just for that perfect split crust. Then I tossed the decapitated loaf in the garbage to hide my sins.)

One warm loaf went to library where I scored a freshly picked 4" lemon for my gift. The librarians had discussed the lemon flavor in my bread and decided I might like one of Sandy's home-grown mutant lemons. I did!

I suspect lemon creme will makes a repeat appearance soon.

PS: Publix had a BOGO on ricotta which lead to this. I've linked the recipe (can't grab the T&T version on my I-Pad....not sure what's up with that?) and here's what I changed:

1. Doubled the recipe, using the lemon version

2. Creamed the wet ingredients (ricotta, eggs, butter, lemon juice, sugar, lemon zest) in the Vitamix. First because I wanted to remove any grittiness from the (whole milk) ricotta, but mostly because I was too lazy to bend down and lift out the KA mixer from under the counter.

3. Used 2 cups cake flour plus 1 cups all-purpose. Hand-stirred those in.

4. Used my King Arthur gluten bread pans, greased/floured. Note: I had used these before and the bread still collapsed, so that wasn't the corrective action.

5. Baked at 350 degrees for a total of 70 minutes. I checked it 3 times so you could probably back it off a few minutes and just leave it bake without anal-retentively opening the oven door so often.

http://www.italianfoodforever.com/2010/05/lemon-ricotta-cake/

 
Thanks for the link. I got lost in the site (in a good way) I'm half Italian

the other half is Texan in case you were wondering....

 
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