And after yesterday’s stress, a soothing, tender-crumbed loaf cake to be enjoyed with a large mug of coffee. Let me qualify that, given the current climate of natural disasters and civil uprisings, this was very much a tiny amount of self-imposed and 1st-world sort of stress, the sort for which a cake is an effective salve. But as I am fairly confident of the power of certain foods to calm in rather more dire situations, it doesn’t feel too inappropriate to post.
This cake, one of Dan Lepard’s (again), has all the requisites for a proper sit-down™: a marble of coffee and vanilla-flavoured mixtures, in a loaf (intrinsically more wholesome than the round cake form, didn’t you know?) with just the right amount of icing. A modest cake, perfect for an elevenses with friends, when it should be the talking, rather than the cake, to take centre stage.
Ricotta and coffee marble cake
Recipe from Dan Lepard. Makes one 1lb loaf
- 3 tbsp instant coffee (the original recipe specifies 2 tbsps of ground coffee), plus another 3 tbsps instant for the icing
- 125g soft unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g plain (AP) flour
- 150g ricotta (supermarket quality is fine)
- 2 large eggs
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- 2 tsps vanilla extract (Marsala or rum in the original recipe)
- 200g icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease and line a 1lb loaf tin.
Boil a little water, and dissolve the coffee in about 2 tbsps of it and leave to stand. Beat the sugar with the butter until pale, then add about a quarter of the flour and beat this in too. Next the ricotta goes in and then the eggs, one at a time. Sift the rest of the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold in. Put half the mixture in another mixing bowl and stir the coffee into one mixture and vanilla or chosen alcohol into the other. Spoon blobs of each mixture alternately into the pan, tap the base of the pan firmly down to settle the mixture and then marble the mixture briefly with a skewer*. Bake for 45 minutes until a sharp knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack, removing from the tin after 10 minutes or so. (My cake isn’t too high, but this is because my loaf tins are long, rather than due to sinkage).
When the cake is cool, boil a little water and sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Dissolve another three tablespoons of instant coffee in the water, and add slowly to the sugar – you may not need all of it. Stop when the mixture falls off the spoon in thick ribbons. Slather over the cake and leave to dry. (The pictures just show the un-iced cake for now.)
*NB I haven’t really got the hang of this marbling thing yet – as you can see, my cake came out more bi-colour than truly marbled. There are some marbling tips here, but next time I will try swirling with a teaspoon or melon baller, something to really pick up mixture and move it around, rather than the thin skewer which didn’t seem to make much difference. Oh well, I’ll just have to bake another one… :0)
2 Comments on "Soothing ricotta and coffee marble cake"
This looks SO GOOD. my mum used to make marble cake all the time, but just a simple chocolate/vanilla one. this one takes it to another level – coffee and ricotta sounds divine!
You know what, not wanting to blow own trumpet [parp parp], it was sooooo delicious – it stayed super moist from the ricotta and it was so pretty too :0)