ricotta cheese

Strawberries are here! yeyeye! There was a time (read: before marriage) when I hated strawberries, well I still do in any form other than fresh. You got confused, I know! I can’t stand strawberry ice-cream, strawberry jam, etc etc, to me they all taste very sweet, very artificial & always leave a very weird, sort of bitter taste in my mouth. But V loves them, so he introduced me to the fresh fruit, I was quite skeptical, ready to hate them. BUT I liked them. Can’t say I love them but ya now I like & enjoy them in the season.

Here in Maharashtra, strawberry plantation is a big industry for both local & export market. Strawberries are available by truck load everywhere, you just cant deny buying yourself a box. 🙂 In Mahabaleshwar & Panchgani, it is a common sight for commoners & tourists to indulge in strawberry picking during the harvest season. I’ve tried doing that too once, but that time season was almost over & we didn’t get the best ones to pick. 😦

I decided to put these strawberries to a new use (at least for us) – yes a CAKE! Thankfully for our growing waistline, I baked this for a dear friend & not for us. When I came across this recipe & read the reviews, I just knew I had to bake this one. I replaced blueberries with strawberries, silken tofu with equal amount of home-made ricotta cheese & cake flour with APF & cornstarch. I reduced the quantity by half & baked it in a loaf pan.

To give a twist I roasted strawberries in honey, olive oil, salt & balsamic vinegar (again home made). It is very frustrating to google recipes and realize that you can’t make most due to lack of ‘fancy’ ingredients. I slowly have started overcoming this by making them (corn syrup, mascarpone, etc) at home as much as possible. This time I conquered Balsamic Vinegar in the best option (cheap & readily available). I increased the quantity of fresh strawberries as they will reduce on roasting. So I took 2 Cups fresh strawberries which gave me about 1 Cup roasted strawberries.

The ricotta cheese was different than our usual paneer, I believe due to the addition of cream – it was creamy in texture & taste. It sure is a perfect substitution for silken tofu.

The roasted strawberry was an out of this world experience. I am going to make them quite often & going to use varied fruits. The color, the smell, the taste was just awesome.

The cake rose well & my kitchen filled with wonderful smell of roasted strawberries & baking. Though upon removing from the cake, it did sink little in the center, I’m not sure why. The cake smelled heavenly & delicious. The crumbs tasted absolutely wonderful. I strongly recommend serving the cake with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. V sulked for not being able to gorge on either the roasted strawberries or the cake. 🙂

I would have loved to use some port here to roast strawberries, but my friend is a complete teetotaler & saatvic to the core. 🙂 She is an Ayurvedic Doctor, practicing with an Ayurvedic Retreat near Pune. She became my role model for practicing Yoga during both my pregnancies. She stood by me in my times of need, she became a friend to me in this still ‘alien’ city and have even fought on my behalf with others. Lately we had a small misunderstanding and I’m glad we overcame our egos and made up. I would hate to loose a special friend like her. Thank you for being my friend, Dr. Roli. This cake is for you. Guys I did not send or dedicate this virtually, I personally delivered it to her on the D-day!

Eggless Roasted Strawberry & Chocolate Bread –

Recipe Source – loosely adapted from Eggless Cooking

Ingredients –

1/4 Cup – Butter, softened
3/4 Cup – Sugar
1/4 Cup – Ricotta Cheese, pureed
1/4 Cup – Curd
1/8 Cup – Milk
2 tsps – Vanilla Extract
1 1/4 Cups – Cake Flour (see my notes)
1 tsp – Baking Powder
1/2 tsp – Baking Soda
a pinch – Salt
1 Cup – Roasted Strawberries (2 Cups fresh Strawberries would give you 1 Cup)

Method –

Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease & line a 8 X 6 X 2 loaf pan.
In a small bowl, blend cheese & yogurt well. Add milk & vanilla, mix well.
Sift together, flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat sugar & butter till light & fluffy, this will take about 5 minutes. To this add liquid ingredients in 3 batches, beat well after each addition.
Now add dry ingredients and blend well.
Add in the roasted strawberries. You can lightly dust them in flour to avoid sinking to the bottom of the pan. Fold them very gently into the batter to avoid further breakdown.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 – 50 mins or till toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Cool on wire rack for 10 mins, then de-mold on a wire rack and cool completely before serving.

Roasted Strawberries –

Recipe Source – adapted from Joy the Baker

Ingredients –

2 Cups – Fresh Strawberries
2 Tbsps – Balsamic Vinegar
1 Tbsp – Olive Oil
2 Tbsps – Honey
a pinch – Salt

Method –

Pre-heat oven to 180 C. Grease & line a rimmed baking sheet.
Hull & slice the strawberries into half or quarter depending on size.
In a small bowl, mix olive oil, salt & honey together.
Place strawberries in a large bowl. Pour the above mixture on it. Toss gently till all the berries are covered.
Spread coated berries in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Keep checking the berries in between as each may vary. It helps to slightly move around the berries a bit for even roasting. Remove from oven before the juices start burning.
Remove the berries & juices from the sheet while still warm and place them in a bowl. Add balsamic vinegar & toss. Set aside and allow it to cool.

Balsamic Vinegar –

Recipe Source – adapted from About.com

Ingredients –

2 Tbsps – Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp – Sugar

Method –

Mix vinegar & sugar to combine.
Use in place of 2 Tbsps of Balsamic Vinegar.

Cake Flour – Place 2 Tbsps of corn flour in a cup, fill the remaining cup with APF – yields 1 cup Cake flour

Ricotta Cheese – I quartered the recipe as I didn’t want to end up with so much ricotta cheese on hand since I regularly make paneer. Makes 1 Cup of Cheese.

Recipe Source – adapted from Chef in You

Ingredients –

500 ml – Whole Milk
1/4 Cup – Heavy Cream, I used Amul
2 tsp – White Vinegar
a pinch – Salt

Method –

In a heavy saucepan, combine milk & cream.
Warm on moderately high heat, till the mixture starts to foam & bubbly. Do not allow to boil.
Remove the pan from heat. Add vinegar & stir gently for 30 secs.
The mixture will curdle almost immediately.
Add salt & stir for another 30 secs.
Cover the pan with wet towel. Allow to stand at room temp for 2 hours.
Line a large colander with several layers of cheesecloth or muslin, allowing several inches of overhang.
Place the colander on a large bowl. Pour the curdled mixture over the colander.
Let the water drain. After few minutes, gather the corners of the cheesecloth & tie it with a rubber-band. Allow to stand in colander for another 30 minutes. Gently squeeze the cheesecloth to drain the whey.
Open the cheesecloth – use ricotta cheese. I use whey as stock for my soups or gravy.

Linking this to –

Merry Christmas Celebrations by Cook, Cook & Cook
Cookies & Cakes for Xmas by My Easy to Cook Recipes
Spot light: Healthy Baking by Recipe Junction
Lets Cook Edible Gifts for Christmas by Simply Food
Bake Fest #14 by Cooks Joy
CookEatDelicious : Desserts – Cake hosted this month by Spicy Food
Celebrate Series – Christmas – hosted by Divya for Dec
60 Days to Christmas – co-hosted by Priya & Divya Pramil
Christmas Cook-off Contest by Kavi

Baking this cake turned out to be a perfect example of Murphy’s Law in terms of planning. Whatever I had planned to do with it, went straight out of the window. I had promised myself to bake the next cake on a weekday, but as luck would have it, V decided to come home for lunch, right in the middle of mixing batter on speeds and demanded LUNCH! My oven had been pre-heated for so long, that it went off to zero and had to be re-heated once my batter and tin was ready. And if this wasn’t enough, to my utter dismay, we had to cancel our trip as V got fever in the evening. 😦 How I was looking forward to this trip only I know. Pune is full of must-see neighboring places during rainy season but since our move here 4 years ago, I haven’t been able to see much as pregnancy, infant and toddler kept me busy. Even this chance went for a toss. booo hooooo 😦 some more tears.

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Ready to Eat — Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – Ready to Eat

To start from where we left, I made Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting for this month’s Sweet Punch with not so much PERFECT results. So I did a second attempt – for reasons see the earlier post. I used cocoa & Ricotta Cheese (paneer) for my recipe. I still added baking soda to it.

Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – I replaced the eggs with Ricotta Cheese in this recipe – (1/4 cup paneer replaces 1 egg). This time I used my 8 inch round tin as I was planning to take this cake for a trek to Raigarh Ropeway and there were others to share. So I increased the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.

Recipe Source – A Sweet Punch Team

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake Batter

Ingredients –

4 Tbsp – Milk
1 cup – Home made Paneer (replaces 4 eggs)
2 tsp – Vanilla Extract
2 cup – Sifted Cake Flour with Cocoa (see below)
1 cup – Sugar
1 tsp – Leavening Agent (3/4 tsp Baking Powder + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda)
1/4 tsp – Salt
246 gms – Unsalted Butter

Method – I replaced the egg with paneer in the steps. Use only home-made paneer.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line & grease 8 inch pan.
Puree the paneer in a blender till smooth.
Lightly whisk together milk, paneer and vanilla in a medium bowl.
Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low-speed for 30 secs, until blended.
Add butter & half of the paneer mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed beat for 1 minute. This will aerate and develop cake’s texture. Scrape down sides.
Add the remaining paneer mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs between each addition. Scrape down sides.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with spatula. Baked for 45 mins.
Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 mins before inverting onto a greased wire rack.

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – Cooling

For making Cake flour at home – Take one cup of APF and remove 2 Tbsp from it. Replace 2 Tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use. I removed 4 Tbsp from 2 cups of cake flour and replaced with 4 Tbsp of Cocoa Powder.

I had read many times that replacing more than 2 eggs is very difficult, next to impossible. But I didn’t feel so. The cake was very good – moist, soft, crumbly, tasty. V couldn’t stop praising or eating. V praising is big because he drives me to tears many a times with his curt remarks about my cooking. So if he praised to the extent that this by far is the best cake I’ve baked then I believe him and you do so too.

Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake - Sliced — Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake – Sliced

I felt that sugar was less and could have been increased more, which was due to addition of cocoa powder. But I didn’t alter any ratio as I wanted to maintain that. I sprinkled the cake with some powdered sugar and I was home. Since the cake was big and I didn’t want us piling kilos, I gave half to our dear friend & neighbor – They also loved it in equal measure as V. 🙂 This one is for more Sweet Punch to experiment with!