Ricotta Pound Cake: Looked awful, tasted great

I’m a huge fan of pound cake, though I haven’t eaten it in years. In fact, I really like the ubiquitous Sara Lee pound cake, though I’m not sure how it rates with pound-cake cooks and connoisseurs. I just remember liking it the last time I had it—about 15 years ago.

Anyway, I ran across this recipe and thought I’d give it a go.

I followed directions well enough, but I had to have done something wrong. By the way the cake erupted out of the pan when cooking, I suspect that I should have split the recipe into two pans.

But even though it spilled all over the bottom of the oven (thankfully, I had put a sheet pan on the bottom to catch spills), and it looked awful, it tasted great. The top was somewhat firm and crisp, but the inside was really dense, moist and flavorful—but a little brick-like in it’s density. Actually, now that I think about it, you could spread the batter fairly thin across a sheet pan and just cook it until crispy. Then cut it as you would bars.

Though this was good, next time I’ll try an alternative recipe, perhaps one without the ricotta.

What you’ll need:

• 12T unsalted butter at room-temperature
• 1.5 cups (372 grams) ricotta cheese
• 1.5 cups (288 grams) sugar 
• 3 eggs
• 2t vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups (180 grams) all-purpose flour—you can use cake flour, instead
• 2.5t baking powder
• 0.5t salt

What to do:

Begin heating your oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan, and set it aside.

Cream the butter, ricotta and sugar in a large bowl with an electric beater on medium-speed for a couple of minutes—until relatively smooth. Now add the eggs and vanilla, continuing to mix until everything is thoroughly combined.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir them in on low speed, then beat at medium speed for about 30 seconds.

Scrape the batter into the greased and floured pan and level it out. Tap the bottom of the pan down on a hard surface to get the air bubbles out.

Bake in the center rack of your 350-degree oven for 45-75 minutes. Yeah, that’s a hell of a time-range, but my cake actually took beyond the 75 minutes. More evidence that I had too much batter in the pan. It’s best to begin checking for doneness at about 45 minutes by inserting a clean toothpick into the center. The cake is done when it comes back out clean. Cover the top with foil if you feel it’s browning too much, but that was actually the highlight of my cake—cooks choice, I guess.

Now for the hardest part: let it cool in the pan while sitting on a cooling rack. When it has cooled for an hour or so, take it out of the pan and slice it to your liking.