Lemon and Ricotta Cake

I recently had a great ricotta cake at the Carriageworks Farmers Market – a fantastic fresh produce market in Eveleigh, in Sydney. The cake had a great texture and was quite delicious.

So  I decided to make a ricotta cake with a lemon theme – lemon zest and juice in the cake, and also lemon thyme, my all time favourite herb!

The cake was beautifully moist, the ricotta really helping out here. Adding lashings of buttercream icing and the result was complete lemon lusciousness!

Ingredients

Cake

150g butter

200g caster sugar

3 free range eggs

200g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

200g ricotta

Juice of half a lemon

Zest of a whole lemon

A few sprigs of lemon thyme + extra to decorate

Icing

100g softened butter

200g icing sugar

Juice of a lemon

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees fan forced. Grease a 20cm springform tin (or 22cm tin for a slightly flatter cake), and line the bottom with baking paper. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until well mixed and light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure to mix until the eggs are well incorporated.

Fold in the self raising flour and baking powder. Fold in the ricotta until incorporated, but being careful to not mix with too a heavy hand. Mix in the lemon juice and zest and the leaves from a few sprigs of thyme.

Spoon into the prepared tin, and bake for 35-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before removing the outer ring of the tin and carefully sliding off the base.

For the icing, cream the butter and icing sugar with enough of the lemon juice to make a lovely lemony  frosting.

Liberslly ice the cake with a thick layer of butter cream. Scatter some thyme sprigs on top for decoration. I added some candied lemon slices, but in hindsight the cake doesn’t really need them!