Blood Orange Ricotta Cheesecake

Blood Orange Ricotta Cheesecake

This is a riff on my Lemon Ricotta cake form my Nina Capri cookbook.  Blood oranges are only available in January through towards the end of February.  They are a joke in this cake!  So deliciously sweet and the colours!  If you want to just do lemons then you can do 8 lemon’s zest and the juice of 4 for the inside of the cake.  You can also just make the cake as is and leave out the syrup and decoration.  This is just if you wanna be fancy.

Serves 10

Ingredients:

230g soft unsalted butter, diced

180g caster / soft light brown sugar

6 medium eggs, separated

250g ground almonds

2 tbsp spelt (45g) or 2 level tbsp GF flour

Pinch sea salt

Zest 4 blood oranges + juice 3 (150g juice roughly)

Zest 1 lemon

400g ricotta cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the syrup

Juice of 6 blood oranges for the syrup

3 tbsp soft light brown/caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Orange garnish

1/2 blood orange, very thinly sliced

2 tbsp caster sugar

Juice 1/2 lemon

Preheat the oven to 170°C + line a 30cm springform tart tin or a 23/24cm cake tin with baking parchment. Using a stand mixer or handheld electric mixer, cream the butter + sugar until light + fluffy - this will take about 5 minutes on a fast speed. Add the egg yolks, a little at a time, followed by the ground almonds + spelt flour. Pour the batter into a bowl + clean the mixer until bone-dry.

In a separate bowl, combine the ricotta, vanilla, lemon’s zest, blood orange zest + orange juice.  Carefully beat this into the butter mix until just combined. Don’t over mix!

Add the egg whites to the clean mixer bowl + whisk until they form stiff peaks.

Carefully fold the egg whites into the batter, a third at a time, until just combined. Carefully pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 35mins (30cm) or 40-45mins (23/24cm), or until a skewer inserted comes out almost clean. Remove + place the cake on a cooling rack.

When the cake is at room temperature, dust with icing sugar.

While the cake bakes, make the syrup! Add all syrup ingredients to a saucepan + set to a high heat + bring to a bubbling boil for about 30 seconds.  Remove from the heat + leave to cool.

For the caramelised orange, place the slices + sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat. Cook gently for 3-4 mins, until the sugar has dissolved + oranges are sticky + caramelised. Put the slices on greaseproof paper + set aside for 10 mins. Arrange  slices on top of the cake.  Spoon a little syrup on top of each slice when serving. Cake keeps in the fridge covered for 4 days.