Rustic Ricotta Cheesecake

Backstory: In high school, we spent just over a month living in Trastevere for my dad’s work, and there was this bakery where we would get cakes. One of these cakes, I still fantasize about today. It was a mysterious creamy cake studded with chocolate chips.

Several years later, I happened upon a recipe in the WSJ for “a ricotta cake you oughta make” and a lightbulb went off. That’s it! It must’ve been some sort of ricotta cheesecake! I clipped the recipe from the newspaper and, several years after that, finally got around to making it.

The first time I tried out this recipe, I ate the cake while still just barely warm from the oven. It had a lovely, soft, pillowy, soufflé-like texture. With a brightness from the orange zest and a warmth from the amaretto splashed in, it was utterly unlike anything I’d ever made before.

Eaten warm or at room temperature, it hardly resembles the cake I remember eating in Rome. But stored in the fridge and enjoyed chilled the next day, the cake takes on a denser, creamier texture more like the cake I’m chasing from my past.

One thing to note: the chocolate chips folded in do not exactly stud the cake. I had a feeling when working with this fluffy batter that they would all sink to the bottom, and they did. When I tried again, this time chopping the chocolate into smaller pieces and then folding it in, the larger chunks still sunk to the bottom while the smaller shavings were suspended. In the end, everyone who tried it actually preferred the first attempt, where the chocolate chips sink clean to the bottom and create a chocolate crust effect. But both ways turn out delicious!

I’m still searching out an exact replica of that cake we ate in Rome, but until then, this cake will do as a wonderfully simple and elegant dessert.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup white sugar
5 eggs, separated into yolks and whites
1 pound whole-milk ricotta
1/4 cup (2 oz.) cream cheese
2 tablespoons flour (for gluten-free, use corn starch)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fleur de sal (or coarse kosher salt)
1 tablespoon orange zest (optional)
1 tablespoon amaretto liquor (bourbon also works nicely, and I imagine rum, brandy, cointreau, etc. would as well)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (see headnotes above)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
Place sugar and egg yolks in food processor and pulse until well combined. Add ricotta and pulse until combined. Add cream cheese and pulse. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse. Add orange zest, if using, and liquor, and pulse.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until just barely forming stiff peaks. Gently fold into batter with a large spatula, stopping while a few streaks of white remain. Add chocolate and fold batter a few more times to incorporate.
Spread batter into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees until puffed and dark golden and the center wobbles slightly, about 45 minutes. Let cool at least ten minutes before running a knife around to loosen the edge and removing the sides of the pan. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature for a fluffy soufflé-like experience—when stored in the fridge and served chilled, it takes on a dense and creamy but no less delicious texture. Store any leftover in the fridge.

Adapted from the Wall Street Journal, A Ricotta Cake You Oughta Make, July 2013.