Friday, May 7, 2010

Apple Ricotta Coffee Cake





Beneath a crunchy, nutty topping lies a pleasantly sweet, velvety cake layer. In between the cake there are wonderfully tender apple pieces and more streusel. It's also a good keeper. While it's not obvious that there's ricotta in this cake, it brings a depth of flavor and moistness - that 'je ne sais quoi' - to the finished product. With 2 whole apples I like to delude myself into thinking that I'm getting a serving of fruit when I have a slice.

This would be a great coffee cake to serve to guests as it stands tall and proud and slices beautifully. The cake filled my spring-form pan to the top and didn't shrink down even after cooling. I already have a ton of apple recipes in my recipe box but this one is definitely going to join my ever-growing collection.

Apple Ricotta Coffee Cake
9" Round Cake | adapted from Mostly Foodstuffs

Streusel:
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Cake:
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups ricotta cheese
2 crisp apples

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9" springform pan.

2. Streusel: Place the brown sugar, flour, rolled oats, cinnamon and salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Add the 6 tablespoons of butter, and pulse until you can no longer see lumps of butter. Refrigerate until ready to use (can be done ahead of time).

3. Cake: Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Alternating the two, add flour mixture and ricotta until just combined. It will be a stiff batter.

4. To assemble: Spread half the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of the streusel filling, and all of the apples. Spread the remaining batter of the top -- Glob spoonfuls over the top and spread gently. Sprinkle with the all the pecans and the remaining streusel. Bake until a tester comes out clean, about an 60 minutes. Cool before serving.

11 comments:

Joanne said...

Adding ricotta to cakes definitely gives them a certain creaminess that is subtle, but still very much there. This cake looks delicious!

Anonymous said...

This looks great! I love coffee cakes so I am definitely going to give this a try!

The Food Hunter said...

I will be making this cake for sure!

dessert girl said...

Mmmm...I love the crunchy part on the top of coffee cake. This looks sooo good!

Helen said...

This looks delicious. I've yet to try ricotta in a cake but I'm sure it makes it really creamy. I would love to make this but my bf hates apples so it would just be for me......not so bad i suppose!

Charlotte said...

I love ricotta cheese.. i'm sure this cake tastes good!:) I've been reading your blog, and I don't know how you can manage to bake almost everyday, study and be a mom! Superwoman I say.. great job!

Chats the Comfy Cook said...

I love the flavor ricotta gives to baked cookies. The first time, I made cookies with ricotta, I could not believe the flavor it had.

I have printed this and hope to make it, inthe near future.

Elle said...

Always looking for good coffee cake recipes and ones with apples...a twofer here and beautiful, too.
An award is waiting for you at my bread blog: http://breadbakersdog.blogspot.com

Darina said...

Wow, that looks great! I adore apple dessert and coffee cake is always delicious and not too sweet. Yum!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I egt excited when I meet another Canadian food blogger. Not too many here in the Okanagan that I know of. I have some ricotta in the fridge so it either makes it to dessert or those ricotta pancakes I have been eying:D

Mary said...

This looks really good! I love ricotta, well, any dairy product, in baked goodies. I just made an apple cake too, but it didn't have ricotta in it (but it did have rum).