My first change: Well, this may not actually be a change but I made my own ricotta for this recipe! I know, crazy, right? But I happened to get a recipe for making homemade ricotta in my Fine Cooking magazine this month and thought I should give it a try. I have made it twice now and yum, is it good! The key thing I need to figure out is the length of time for draining the ricotta. The recipe says you can drain it anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours, depending if you want it soft or firm. On my first trial, I made it fairly soft, and this time it was more firm. None of this was actually intentional, it just happened this way because of course I didn't set a timer or anything smart like that. Have you ever made ricotta? It is not hard, just takes a little time. The basic ingredients are whole milk, heavy cream, sea salt and lemon juice or vinegar. It is all a matter of quantities of these ingredients. Many recipes seem to have a 3c whole milk to 1 cup heavy cream and 3 TB acid (lemon juice/vinegar) ratio. The Fine Cooking recipe used way less heavy cream (1 cup for a gallon whole milk) and called for 1/2 cup lemon juice. I am not sure what difference the milk/cream ratio makes (creaminess) but the acid amount really does vary. Lemon juice can have a varied level of acid so I found using apple cider vinegar seemed to get better results. Using additional lemon juice worked fine too, which is what I did the first time. It also depends on how pasteurized your milk/cream are. The less pasteurized your dairy products are, the less acid you will need to get nice curds. But I'll be darned if I could find anything but ultra-pasteurized dairy! Anyway, if you have never attempted homemade ricotta cheese, I recommend giving it a try. It's kinda fun to watch the curds form and could be a fun science experiment for your kids!
Back to the pie recipe! There are/were very few ingredients for this pie: crust, ricotta, sugar, anisette, eggs and cinnamon. The crust recipe is from the book, called Pasta Frolla. It is a very forgiving crust but not as yummy as my tried and true flaky pie crust. I'd use my own crust next time. To figure out what I wanted to do with the filling I did some internet research and learned that a ricotta pie is a traditional Italian Easter dessert! Huh. I looked at some recipes to get flavor ideas. Instead of (1 TB!!) anisette, I used 1 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (have you ever used this extract? Amazing!) and the zest of 1/2 Mandarin orange (about 1/2 teaspoon). I also added an additional tablespoon of sugar, as it seemed to need it when I tasted the batter. I mixed the filling in my stand mixer, but an immersion blender would have been even better to get the filling nice and smooth.
The pie was pretty funny looking when it came out of the oven. The filling puffs up quite a bit, to the point that some of the lattice strips disconnected from the edges and sort of hovered above the pie plate! When I looked at the end result, I decided it needed to be served with some blueberry sauce. It was just a bit boring looking by itself!
I am glad I added the blueberry sauce. It really did make it better. My pie was a bit dry, which could be because my ricotta was to firm(?) so the blueberry sauce helped. I did notice that one of the recipes I saw for a ricotta pie included a cup of cream in the filling, so that would have helped as well. The filling itself is very light in texture, almost like a light cheesecake. I do not think it needed the lattice top, as it seemed to add to the dryness. I am curious to know what others thought of this recipe. I liked the pie with the changes I made, but it is not my favorite dessert ever.
The recipe for Sweet Ricotta Pie can be found on page 376 of Baking with Julia.
Blueberry Sauce
adapted from allrecipes
Ingredients
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup water
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup white sugar (I used a scant 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup cold water
3 TB cornstarch (I used 2 TB as I wanted a thinner sauce)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions:
Combine the blueberries, 1/4 cup water, orange juice and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir gently and bring to a boil. Mix the cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water in a small bowl. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the blueberry mixture, being careful not to squash the blueberries. Simmer gently until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract and cinnamon. If the sauce is too thick, thin with a little additional water.
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Looks really luscious with the blueberry sauce!
ReplyDeleteI didn't make my own ricotta here, but have tried it at home before....made the best toast topping! I agree that this pie was a little dry, but that slice of yours looks so good with the sauce!
ReplyDeleteI have made my own ricotta before - getting the right moisture is my challenge too.
ReplyDeleteLove fiora di sicilia - it has such a unique flavor.
Looks wonderful with the sauce!