Ina Garten-Inspired Blueberry Ricotta Cake
Ricotta is what makes this cake damp in the good sense. It is also what makes it sink, if you use it straight from the tub.
Supermarket ricotta sits in loose whey, and the amount varies enormously between brands and between tubs of the same brand. Two hundred and fifty grams might carry fifty grams of free liquid or almost none. That is a huge swing in a batter this size — enough to turn a cake that rises and sets into one that collapses in the middle as it cools.
Tip it into a sieve over a bowl for an hour. Whatever comes out was going to be a problem.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Blueberry Ricotta Cake
Serves 10 · Baking
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 55 min
- Total
- 1 hr 40 min
Involved8 steps, 11 ingredients, a technique that commonly fails
Ingredients
- 250 g ricotta, drained 1 hour
- 200 g butter, softened
- 200 g caster sugar
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 lemon, zested
- 220 g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 250 g blueberries, tossed in 1 tbsp of the flour
- icing sugar, to finish
Method
- Drain the ricotta in a sieve for. Discard the whey.1 hour
- Heat the oven to 175°C (155°C fan). Line a 23 cm springform tin.
- Cream the butter and sugar , until pale.4 minutes
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and lemon zest.
- Beat in the drained ricotta — the batter may look slightly split, which is fine.
- Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt. Stop as soon as it comes together.
- Fold in most of the blueberries. Spread in the tin and scatter the rest on top.
- Bake , until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin.50–55 minutes
Ricotta works differently from other dairy
It does not disperse into the batter the way milk or yogurt does. The curds stay as discrete pockets, and each one is a small reservoir of moisture that keeps the crumb tender for days without making the cake greasy. That is why this cake is still good on day three when a butter sponge is dry.
Toss the blueberries in flour — but know what it does
A tablespoon of the measured flour tossed with the berries helps a little: it gives the surfaces something to grip. It is not magic, and it will not rescue a loose batter. Berries sink in thin batters and stay put in thick ones, so the draining step matters far more than the flour trick.
Frozen blueberries, if you must
They work, but do not thaw them — add them frozen and straight from the bag, and add five minutes to the bake. Thawed, they bleed and the whole cake turns grey-purple.
Storing
Four days at room temperature and it improves for the first two. It freezes well whole for three months. Dust the icing sugar on just before serving; it dissolves within an hour.
Questions people ask
Why drain the ricotta?
Tubs vary a lot in how much loose whey they contain, and the extra liquid makes the cake sink.
Can I use fresh ricotta from a deli?
Yes, and it is better. It is usually drier already, so an hour in a sieve may yield almost nothing.
Why did my blueberries sink?
The batter was too wet — almost always undrained ricotta. Flouring the berries helps only marginally.
Can I use frozen blueberries?
Yes, added frozen. Do not thaw them first.
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