Specialty cheese shops commonly sell an amazing sweet Lemon Ricotta I’ve riffed on with this Baked Lime Ricotta with Blackberries. The original Lemon Ricotta is fun to put on a cheese board, especially a dessert cheese board, because it’s such a great bridge between traditional dessert and cheese for dessert. If it’s easy to buy in cheese shops, and it’s oh-so-wonderful, then why did I need to make it you ask? Fair point. But I never said it was easy to find, and even in a big city with good cheese shops, every now and then I can’t find it, which makes me really sad, especially if I traipsed all the way down to the Italian Market. I didn’t set out to write this recipe at all because I figured it would be easy to find an official recipe on the subject. When things are mass-produced, usually there’s a sort of consensus on how to make them, but as I searched it became apparent that there weren’t really recipes for the lemon ricotta. The recipes I saw were basically just variations on cheesecake, and that’s really not what this is (you’ll note I’m definitely not calling it a cake). The good news is that with just a little tinkering I’m confident that I got quite close to the original, and since I made it myself, I decided to try out lime instead of lemon. By reading the ingredient list on the lemon ricotta package, I knew that it is typically made with buffalo ricotta, which is hard to come by. Adding in the buffalo butter, which is easier to find, gives some of the robust flavor (and density from the higher fat and protein contents) to the Baked Lime Ricotta with Blackberries resulting in really delicious dessert.
Baked Lime Ricotta with Blackberries
Ingredients
- 20 ounces whole milk ricotta
- 8 ounces buffalo milk butter; room temperature*
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar; separated
- zest of 2 limes
- juice of 1 lime
- 4 eggs; separated
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon lime oil
- ½ cup rice flour
Blackberry Sauce
- 1 ½ pints blackberries
- ½ cup sugar
- juice of 1 lime
- optional ½ pint red currants or other berries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325° F.
- Beat butter, 1 cup sugar, and egg yolks for about 5 minutes. The mixture will become very fluffy and light in color.
- Add in ricotta, lime zest, lime juice, salt, baking powder, vanilla, and lime oil.
Beat well. - Add in rice flour and mix until just incorporated. Set aside.
- With your whisk attachment, in a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Whisk in remaining half cup of sugar in four additions.
- With a spatula, fold whites into the batter.
- Grease a bundt pan. Pour in batter. Smooth the top. Bake for 40-60 minutes, until the cake is set.
- While the cake is baking make the blackberry sauce. Cook 1 pint of the berries, sugar, and lime juice in a medium sauce pan over medium heat until broken down. Let cool.
- Add in ½ pint fresh blackberries and red currants if you’re using them. These gorgeous fresh berries make it look so beautiful.
- If you’re serving on a cheese board, serve the blackberry sauce as a compote on the side and put small slices or chunks on the cheese board. If you’re serving it on its own as dessert, top it before you serve to give guests the full drama.
Notes
Oh my … I love lemon and blackberries together … and I can only imagine how delicious this is! Looks amazing!
It really, really is.
There are few pairings I love more than citrus and berries. Seriously, the tart, sweet punch just makes me think of Summer. Love this, and will add to my “try it!” list!
So with you. I always pick the citrus berry dessert.
I love all the flavors in this!
So delicious and unique! I have pinned and definitely want to make–and I love the lime.
Thanks for pinning! It’s a really delicious recipe.
What an interesting concept. I’ve never encountered it anywhere. Have never seen buffalo butter either but will definitely search it out. Can’t wait to try this. Looks wonderful. 🙂
I worked as a cheese monger for a year and learning a lot about the different milk products available was a major plus of the experience. Buffalo butter is really cool.
I really want to try this recipe. I love ricotta and lime.
Sometime I just eat plain ricotta with a little granola and lemon or lime for breakfast. So good.
If I want to make the lemon version do I substitute the same amount as lime juice and zest?
You may want to tinker with it over time, but yes, to start with, make it the same.