Cake recipe

[rosiespark]

75g butter
170g sugar
75g ricotta cheese
3 eggs, separated
175g all-purpose flour
grated rind of 1 lemon
7ml/1½ tbsp baking powder
45ml/3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
icing sugar, for dusting

1. Grease a 22cm/9 inch round cake or springform pan. Line the bottom with baking parchemnt or waxed paper. Grease paper. Dust with flour. Set aside. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
2. Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in ricotta.
3. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Add 30ml/2 tbsp of flour, and lemon rind and juice. Sift baking powder into remaining flour and beat into the batter until just blended.
4. Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold them carefully into the batter.
5. Transfer the mixture to prepared pan. Bake for approx. 45 minutes, or until tester inserted in center comed out clean. Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool. Dust the cake generously with icing sugar before serving.


And no, I haven't cut it yet, or tasted it. It's to be the pièce de résistance for this evening. Well, I hope it is. ::fingers crossed::

The recipe's identical to this one but I've given the metric measurements because that's mostly what I used. Which is not to say that precise measurements necessarily give a better result, just that I am the sort of cook who wants to measure dry stuff by weight and liquids by volume. And the latter in ml, thank you very much. Cups? Pffft! How does one measure "a cup of butter", anyway?

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Was your question about measuring a cup of butter rhetorical?

Here's how I do it:

The best way: take a 2-cup liquid measure. Fill half of it with water. Add butter till the water reaches the 2-cup mark. Pour out the water.

The other way: soften the butter and put it into a 1-cup measure with a spatula.

I wish I could taste your cake! Suddenly I'm hungry. Well, that's okay, I'm going out to brunch in a few minutes, if I get my act together, shower and get dressed, like, immediately.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

It wasn't rhetorical, so thank you for that most ingenious answer. I still think weighing butter is easier than all the messing about with cups and water, though!

Enjoy your brunch - off you go, get a move on! :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well, at least I'm showered now. And the birds are fed. And I'm about to leave.

I thought while showering that there are two other methods of measuring a cup of butter that I use (sometimes) so automatically I didn't even think of them.

One is that the foil packets that butter comes in are usually marked with lines so you can see how much of the pound of butter equals a quarter cup, half cup, or a cup. You just cut the pound of butter at that line and voila, a cup of butter.

The other is that you can buy a pund of butter wrapped in 4-oz packages, and use each package as a measure. I don't get this because it costs a little more than just getting a solid pound and it isn't as if cutting butter is difficult.

Now - off to brunch!

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

Darn! She beat me to the measuring butter thing. :D I don't know why we (Canadians and Americans) cook by measuring dry ingredients rather than weighing them, but so it is. I prefer to get out the scales because a cup isn't always a cup. It may be an American cup. :)

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

a cup isn't always a cup.

Precisely.

It may be an American cup.

Or, Heaven forfend, an Australian cup!