Ricotta cake with fresh redcurrants - Ciambella alla ricotta con ribes rosso

From my book Sweet As... ciambella alla ricotta. Ricotta ring cake. Usually made with jam filling, this time I added fresh redcurrants, it was great!

Ingredients

250 g ricotta

300g sugar

3 eggs

300 g self raising flour

grated ring of 1 lemon

1 cup of cleaned fresh redcurrants

The original recipe is in my book Sweet As...

Here is a quick explanation: cream together the ricotta and sugar, then add all the other ingredients following the order in the ingredient list. Bake at 180C for approximately 40mins. Sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate with fresh redcurrants.

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Vegan and sugar free chocolate mousse

I am on a diet but really wanted some chocolate for Mother's Day, something mostly raw, low carb and healthy. This dessert is so easy and delicious that I made it two days in a row, once with hazelnuts and once without. I'll share the basic recipe:

12 dates

a little water to cover the dates

1 heap tsp cocoa (I used Dutch cocoa)

half tsp vanilla essence

1 firm avocado

berries to decorate

Remove the stones from the dates and place in a nutribullet or blender and add enough water just to cover them. Soak for 20 minutes, then add cocoa (a real heap tsp of it) and vanilla. Blend. Add the avocado, sliced, and blend again. Divide into three serving bowls or glasses, top with berries (frozen ok) and refrigerate until serving time. Decorate with edible flowers if you like, I used Alyssum here. If you want to add hazelnuts you will need about 8, toasted and grounded, to add to the date mixture. 

My husband couldn't believe that it was made with avocado and no sugar! The texture is just like a mousse, you can increase lightly the cocoa for a more bitter-chocolate flavour, increasing the dates (or using dates that are too big) will make it sweeter but may give out more of a date rather than cocoa flavour. If the mousse is too thick add a drop of water and mix again.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Ricotta with strawberries, manuka honey, edible gold and cornflowers

 

I have been on a diet recently so this is a pretty low-fat dessert: ricotta with strawberries marinated with lemon juice (a mixture of regular strawberries and tiny Alpine strawberries from the garden) and a tiny little bit of mānuka honey. For best effect the dessert is decorated with edible gold and cornflower petals. It was stunning to look at, and delicious!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A round vegan custard slice, step by step

Thanks to my friend Ray I have recently discovered these sweet Spanish Ines Rosales' tortas (there is also a savoury version). And noticing that they are vegan I thought of making a quick dessert, a bit like a custard slice, which I love, with them!

For the custard I used oat milk (barista style).

Ingredients:

1 tbsp flour

2 tbsp sugar

250 ml oat milk

a few drops of vanilla essence

2 sweet Ines Rosales pastries

Amarena cherries (optional)

Icing sugar to sprinkle

Fresh Fruit to serve (optional)

Mix the first three ingredients together and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Add the vanilla at the end. You should cook this custard until it is quite thick, and then keep stirring after cooking until it is lukewarm and no more steam comes out. Make sure that is thick, not runny!

Pile the custard on one of the pastry

I had some amarena cherries so I though of adding 4 to the custard, but any fresh or preserved fruit would work too. Just don't add too much 'juice'.

Place the second pastry on top and press lightly, smoothing the custard on the sides with a small spoon, if necessary. Sprinkle with icing sugar and refrigerate for a few hours.

This actually served three people, and we had fresh cherries on the side. I'll definitely make it again, probably with berries or with fruit preserved in alcohol! Yum! A real treat!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

And now some flowers for my Pinterest board!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Soft baked cheesecake, "Japanese style"

One thing that I loved about living in Japan were the cakes, both Japanese and Western style. In fact the Western style cakes not only are of an incredible high quality, but they also seem lighter and less sweet that what we have here in New Zealand. The baked cheesecake has always been one of my favourites, I do find it a little 'eggy' perhaps, but every now and then it is fun to make!

Ingredients

1 x 250g pack of cream cheese (I used Philadelphia) 

50g butter (I used salted butter, follow instructions if you use unsalted butter)

150ml cream

50 sugar

5 eggs (large)

80g self rising flour

lemon zest and juice

Apricot jam for the topping (optional)

Cube the cream cheese and butter and place into a mixing bowl with the cream and sugar. If you use unsalted butter add a very small pinch of salt too. Place the bowl on a pot with boiling water (Bain Marie)  and mix well until all the ingredients are melted. Make sure that there are no lumps of cream cheese! Remove from the heat and then add the egg yolks, one by one, mixing well.  In the meantime whip the egg whites to a stiff peak, and also heat the oven to 180C. Add flour to the main mixture, then lemon zest (1 lemon) and lemon juice (one or two tbsp, depending on your lemon - Mayer lemons are sweet so you need more, if you use a more acidic lemon one tbsp will suffice). Fold in the egg whites little by little. Pour into a 18cm round baking tin lined with buttered baking paper (on the bottom and side of the tin - I butter both the tin and the baking paper). Place the tin on a larger baking pan filled with 30-40cm of hot water and place into the oven. The cake will also bake at Bain Marie. Turn the heat down to 160C and bake for about one hour. Turn the oven off but do not remove the cheesecake: leave it to cool down in the oven with the oven door slightly open. Sadly it will drop a bit in heigh while cooling, but this is normal. I am not sure what kind of stabilisers commercial bakeries use to keep their baked cheesecakes super high, but this is more about taste, and the homemade does taste better! When the cheesecake has cooled down remove from the baking tin and if you like brush the top with a little apricot jam thinned with hot water. 

I particularly like this cheesecake because it is so soft and not so sweet, so I can have it for breakfast with my coffee. For dessert instead I like to add some Italian amarena cherries in syrup, or some berries, fresh or frozen, marinated with a little sugar and lemon juice, to give it a bit more sweetness and flavour.

And now some flowers for my Pinterest 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Apple cupcakes with dried flowers

 

I have a selection of dried petals: blue cornflowers, red petals (a mixture of rose, verbena, dianthus) and orange and yellow (marigold and calendula), ready to add to a cake or cupcakes or muffins.

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes/muffins

4-5 Oratia Beauty apples

40 ml water

10 ml lemon juice

120 g salted butter

3 eggs

130 g sugar

A few drops of pure vanilla essence (optional)

200 g self-rising flour

Dried flowers

For the icing:

100 gr butter

100 g sugar

more dried flowers

Preheat the oven to 175°C. 

Line a 12-muffin tray with cupcakes paper cups.

In the meantime place the water and lemon juice in a mixing bowl, peel and slice the apples and drop them directly into the lemony water.

Melt the butter in a jug, either in the microwave or in the oven (while the oven is warming up for the cupcakes). Place the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk, using an electric beater, until the mixture looks light and pale yellow in colour. Slowly add the melted butter and the vanilla essence, if using.

Keep beating at a low speed now; add half of the flour followed by half of the lemony water from the apples. Add the rest of the flour and water and keep beating making sure that there are no lumps. Add the apples and the dried petals. Divide into the cupcakes paper cups.
 
Bake for about 18-20 minutes, until golden brown at the top. You can also check by inserting a toothpick into the cupcakes: if it comes out clean the cupcakes are ready. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and let them cool down. The icing is optional, I just mixed some melted butter with sugar and used it to top the cupcakes, then sprinkled more dried petals on top. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 lockdown recipe 6: a super soft and super easy (and dairy free) apple and pear cake

 🍎🍐 I bought quite a few apples and pears from the orchard in Oratia before it closed down and I needed to use those which were getting a bit soft, so I peeled and cut about 1kg between the two and added lemon juice. They were quite “lemony” 🍋😊 and I thought of using my lemon cake recipe from the book Party Food for Girls, with a few variations. 

👩🏻‍🍳 4 eggs, 250 g sugar, 200ml vegetable oil, 250 g self raising flour and a drop of pure vanilla essence. 

Beat the eggs and sugar first until the mixture is pale yellow, then add the oil and, little by little the flour. End with vanilla. Stop beating and fold in the apples and pears. Pour into a greased or lined baking tin (23cm is good, lots of cake here) and bake at 180℃ for 45 mins to one hour (until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean). Cool down completely before removing from the tin. Dust with icing sugar. Try it and you will thank me for the recipe 😊
🍎🍐🍏

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Covid-19 lockdown recipe 2: Mont Blanc with chestnut cream and chickpeas

The lockdown for me is a chance to clean up the pantry, instead of concentrating in stocking up with too much food. I always have a full pantry anyway, one of the advantages of leaving a bit out of town perhaps, but also many bags a quarter full that beg to be finished, or cans of food kept in the emergency kit which need rotating anyway. I found a can of sweet chestnut spread which I bought ages ago, I usually combine it with fresh chestnuts or canned chestnuts (not sweet) but I had none. I have plenty of chickpea cans though, and chickpeas are good for making desserts too! Mont Blanc, or Monte Bianco, is one of my favourite desserts, Mum used to make it a lot when I was a child because we have a chestnut wood in Italy, and the nuts were our staple all winter long. 

Drain the chickpeas and keep the water aside. This can be used to make vegan meringues (recipe here), or vegan fresh pasta (recipe here), or many other recipes. Then rinse the chickpeas under running water and mush them with the nutri-bullet (not as fine like hummus, leave a little 'texture'. Combine with the chestnut spread and some grated dark chocolate (to taste). The chestnut spread is soo sweet that you won't need to add any sugar.

Mix well, then whip 300 ml of cream and add half to the mixture, one spoon at the time.

Vegans can use coconut cream, like in this recipe here!

Fold the cream in slowly, trying to keep the mixture light.

Like this.

Now spoon the mixture over a plate and shape like a mountain.

Cover with the remaining cream,

Top with more grated dark chocolate,

And decorate, if you like. I used my last blueberries and the first Cape Gooseberries from the garden, and some candied Poppies (recipe here).

Refrigerate for a few hours before serving. Delicious, lots of proteins, gluten free and no cooking required, and no guessing that there are chickpeas there!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Black boy peaches with kawakawa and Honeydew

I am a bit behind with my posts and have accumulated so many photos and recipes that I am not sure I will have the time to post them all. This easy recipe is a bit out of season now in New Zealand, but if you like peaches set it aside, because it is easy and delicious! I use black boy peaches, which have a beautiful colour, cut them in quarters and peeled them, and then drizzled them with honey. I used beechwood honeydew from J.Friend & Co.. Then I added a few fresh leaves of kawakawa, foraged from my bush garden, and a few drops of lemon juice. The peaches and kawakawa should marinate in the fridge for a few hours for better result. Serve the peaches cold, with cream if you like (don't eat the kawakawa leaves, they are there just for flavour, although I love to lick the honey off - not at the table of course! 😅)

And now more posies from Instagram!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Vegan and gluten free Turmeric spoon dessert

After making successfully a turmeric creme, a mousse and a semifreddo, I also made a Vegan version, topped with fruit (blueberries and passion fruit from my garden). 

Mix 1 tbsp of cornflour with 2 tbsp of sugar and a pinch of turmeric powder. Slowly add 500ml or soy milk (or another vegetable milk of your choice), bring to the boil and simmer, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Pour into 4 dessert bowl (I use grappa/whisky glasses), and refrigerate. Before serving decorate with fruit (I used plums, nectarines, watermelon, blueberries and passion fruit).

Super delicious!

Fruit from the garden:

Veggies from the garden

 

And flowers

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©