Adventures in Cheesecake » Italian Orange-Ricotta (and puppy!)

Italian Orange-Ricotta (and puppy!)

The cheesecake: a light, orange-flavored Italian ricotta cheesecake topped with caramelized orange rind.

Italian Orange-Ricotta Cheesecake

In honor of meeting our friend Jason’s new puppy, Bizmark — (see adorable pic in the gallery below! And don’t worry, the cheesecake was for the people, not the dog) — we tried to bake an Italian Orange-Ricotta cheesecake based on this recipe from International Flavors. Per Wikipedia’s definition, this recipe isn’t a typical Italian cheesecake, but it seemed like a good foray into the Italian world of ricotta-based cheesecake. (American cheesecakes typically use cream cheese.)

It certainly didn’t end up as pretty as it was supposed to. In fact, it looked like a total disaster… but it tasted pretty good. Jason’s puppy was definitely interested in it, and the humans around her liked it, though some found the caramelized orange rinds too pungent. If I were to make this recipe again, I would make sure to grease the pan really well, remove the cake before it cracks, and cut the orange rinds super thin. Here’s the recipe as I made it, which is probably a little off from the original recipe in measurement conversions.

The Recipe:

The crust:

1 1/3 cup of crumbled graham cookies
4 tbs butter

The filling:

16 oz ricotta cheese
7 tbs heavy cream
3 eggs
1 orange
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbs flour

The topping:

1 1/4 cup sugar
4 oranges, rinds only
1 cup water

First, grease and flour the springform pan (yes, we finally got one!). Preheat the oven to 320 degrees.

Prepare the crust. Crumble the graham crackers in a food processor and melt the butter. Mix together lightly with a fork and pat into the base of the pan.

Next, prepare the filling. Grate the peel of one orange and squeeze the juice. Add the ricotta, the sugar, the cream, the flour and the egg yolks. Mix at medium speed with a mixer (yes, we finally got one of these too!). Whip the egg whites and add to the ricotta cream. Pour into the pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.

For the topping, julienne (um, slice) the orange rinds into very thin strips. Cook the rinds with the sugar and water over low heat for 30 minutes. Drain the rinds as needed to top your cheesecake.

Our finished cheesecake looked, well, like a mess, but like a homemade fancy cake. It was light and not too sweet, with delicate orange flavoring. We ate it at Jason’s house, where we played with Bizmark and competed in a game of Citadels. That is as geeky as it sounds.