Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake. A rich, velvety texture with luscious pools of chocolate chips. This pound loaf cake is easy to make and also light since it contains no butter or oil. A great treat for your dessert table, tea time, or breakfast, in pure Italian style.

Song of the day: Mambo Italiano - Carla Boni

These types of cakes are on the top of my list. Simple, rustic, not too elaborated, they are great to have any time of the day: Italian-style breakfast, after lunch with a small cup of espresso, tea time, or after dinner dessert.

Recipe inspiration

As a matter of fact, I found the recipe for this Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake in one of my favorite cookbooks: Gennaro Contaldo's "Panetteria". He calls it "Plum Cake di Anna". To explain, in Italy, most cakes that are baked in a loaf pan are called plumcake. And not that there is any plums involved. We love our plumcakes in Italy, (plum pronounced ploom), especially the ones made with yogurt.

Ingredients for this Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Again, not very many ingredients. And I love that.

• Ricotta. Try to get a good quality, smooth ricotta. Drain if it is too watery.
• Granulated sugar. Or a light cane sugar.
• Eggs, divided. Whisking the egg whites and folding them in, gives airiness to the batter.
• Vanilla. Pure vanilla extract, or a vanilla bean pod.
• Self-rising flour. As many British baking recipes, this uses self raising flour which consists of regular flour additioned with a little salt and baking powder. Basic formula to make your own self-raising flour: For every 1 cup of all-purpose flour, add 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt. Whisk well.
• Chocolate chips. Semisweet or dark work well. However, if you like milk chocolate that would be fine, too.

Preparation

• Firstly, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and line a 9 ½ x 5in/24 x 13cm loaf pan with parchment paper.
• Then, in a bowl, whisk the ricotta and the sugar until creamy smooth.
• Add the egg yolks and continue to whisk until well blended and velvety.
• Add the vanilla extract or the vanilla bean seeds and stir.

• After, sift in the flour, then the chocolate chips, and fold.
• In a separate bowl with a hand blender, or in the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites to almost stiff peaks.
• Fold them delicately into the batter until well blended.
• Lastly, pour the mixture in the prepared loaf pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes, checking it after the 40 minute mark. The cake is done when a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is well risen, golden, and a few cracks appear. If you notice the cake is browning too much while baking, cover the top losely with foil.

• Take out of the oven and leave to cool on a rack. Then, unmold, cut, and serve.

How to store this Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

In the end, as almost every type of baked goods, it is best eaten fresh. If you have leftover cake, wrap it in plastic to stay moist. It will keep for 3-4 days at room temperature.

The Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake can also be frozen, well wrapped in plastic and placed in a ziplock bag. I wouldn't suggest keeping it for longer than 1 month. To eat, let thaw at room temperature, or warm up in an oven.

Taste test

To sum up, the crumb of this Italian Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pound Cake is very delicate and just melts in your mouth, alongside the wonderful hits of dark chocolate and the richness of the ricotta. Coffee is a great accompaniment and this cake would definitely hold up if you're a dunker, like me.

Enjoy!

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