Torta di ricotta, or ricotta pie, is an Italian cheesecake. There are many variations to torta di ricotta, some simple and others quite complex. Here's a fairly simple Sienese version, once an Easter treat but now made year round.
Prep Time: 90 minutes
Cook Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients:
- ** For the Dough **
- 4/5 cup (100 g) flour
- 3 yolks (reserve the whites)
- 1/2 cup less 2 tablespoons (70 g) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup less 2 tablespoons (70 g) sugar
- ** For the Filling **
- 1 pound (450 g) ricotta
- Sugar to taste
- 3 eggs, separated
- Pralined roasted almonds or walnuts (see below link)
Preparation:
Begin by making a dough:Mix the four and sugar and cream the butter. Combine the ingredients of the dough, using a pastry cutter and working the dough as little as possible with your hands. Form it into a ball and let it sit in a cool place for an hour.
Roll the dough out and put it in in a well-buttered 9-inch pie pan, covering both bottoms and sides. Cover the dough with a thin layer of beans to keep it from warping, and bake it at 400 F (200 C) for 10-15 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it cool.
In the meantime, prepare the filling: take about a pound of ricotta and put it through a strainer, adding sugar to taste -- it should be sweet, but not tremendously so. Separate three more eggs, lightly beat the yolks, and combine them with the ricotta, then whip all six whites to soft peaks and fold them into the ricotta mixture too. Fill the baked pie crust with the filling, dot the pie with candied roasted almonds and walnuts, and bake everything for about 10 minutes more at 350 F (175 C -- you don't want the ricotta to brown), to give the eggs time to set. Dust the pie with powdered sugar and sprinkle it with cocoa powder as soon as you remove it from the oven.
Serve with Vinsanto.
