Nut & Ricotta Bundt Cake

It finally snowed on Thursday! I'm not usually a big fan of snow - or of winter for that matter. But, somehow, this year, I couldn't wait for the first snow to fall. Snowfall calms me down. And after a year that felt like a rollercoaster ride, that's exactly what I need. Don't get me wrong, it was a good year, but I feel like slowing down a bit these last few weeks might just be the right thing. So I had myself a cozy Sunday today together with Andrea, a friend of mine from work. She invited me over for lunch and cooked a delicious Gnocchi bake with tomato sauce and lots of Parmesan cheese - just the food you need on such a cold November day. Cake, of course, was my business. I spotted this recipe here over at the beautiful Love Nonpareille. As you know, the word "Ricotta" in a recipe title always catches my eye. The roasted nuts give this cake an intense flavor, the ricotta keeps it moist and the lemon zest gives it the little extra something. We had this cake together with a mug of steaming hot chocolate - talk about a perfect match! Andrea provided me with a wonderful recipe. To be posted here soon, promise!

Recipe

(Original in German: here)

50g walnuts

50g amonds

50g hazelnuts

150g soft butter, plus some more to grease the tin

150g sugar

200g ricotta

150g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs

grated zest of one lemon

Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

Roast the nuts in a frying pan. Then, chop them. It works best if you shortly pulse them in a blender - this way, you get a nice mixture of finely and coarsely chopped nuts. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff, set aside.

In a bowl, beat sugar and butter with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Then, add ricotta, eggs and lemon zest. Beat until all is well combined and you have a smooth batter. In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder. Then add the flour to the butter mixture and beat well. After that, add the nuts and fold them in with a ladle. Then, carefully fold in the egg whites with a ladle.

Grease a large bundt tin (about 1.5l capacity) or two small ones with butter. Dust with flour. Then, fill in your batter. Bake your cake for about 50 minutes. If a wooden skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, it's done.

Let cool in the tin for at least ten minutes before releasing the cake. I usually let it cool longer because I find that, when I try to release bundt cakes too early, I always destroy them. Dust with icing sugar before serving.