Classic Ricotta Pound Cake
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Classic Ricotta Pound Cake is dense, soft, and sweet. It is guaranteed to get you to rave reviews at your next potluck!
This slightly sweet Classic Ricotta Pound Cake packs a flavor punch. It satisfies your craving for a moist, buttery, and tender dessert.
This dessert is incredibly rich, buttery, irresistible. I use whole milk ricotta in this pound cake recipe.
Classic Ricotta Pound Cake
I have plenty of pound cake recipes, but this is the only one that I make in a loaf pan. Usually, when I bake a cake or sweet bread in a loaf pan, they always sink a little in the center. For some reason, I can’t get the center to bake completely before the edges get overcooked.
Also, this pound cake doesn’t have a fine crumb-like most of the other pound cakes. It’s moist, dense, and creamy, but the crumb is actually quite large especially for a pound cake.
Lemon and ricotta just go together to me so I used lemon zest and lemon extract. I also test this cake with vanilla flavoring. Both flavors were good, but I prefer the lemon.
Serving Suggestions
Like most other pound cakes, this is delicious by itself. BUT, It also makes a great base for ice cream, whipped cream, berries, chocolate, or caramel sauce. And, how great would grilled peaches and mascarpone be!?
*Helpful comment from Lea –
I noticed that a few people had a problem with the cake being undone, or falling in the middle. When I use ricotta cheese in making cannoli cakes, you can’t beat it for very long or it will get runny.
I made this pound cake twice and I creamed thebutter and sugar together first, then mixed in all of the other ingredients, then added the ricotta cheese last and mixed it in on low speed and only until it was incorporated. Don’t over beat. As well, I baked the first one in 2 – 9 inch round cake pans and the second one in a fluted pound/bundt cake pan and they both turned out fine. In fact I had one person who ate it say it was her new favorite pound cake. Its awesome, in fact, I’m going to make a 2 tier baby shower cake and cupcakes with this recipe for next week.
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Classic Ricotta Pound Cake
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Save To Your Recipe BoxIngredients
- 1 and ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup butter at room temperature
- 1 and ½ cups whole milk ricotta
- 1 and ½ cups granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or lemon extract and zest from 1 lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease a 9-inch loaf pan with butter or solid vegetable shortening then sprinkle of granulated sugar or flour. Wilton cake release is great to prevent sticking too! (I use shortening and sugar. Sugar doesn't leave white patches like flour does.)
- In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter, ricotta, and sugar until smooth about 2 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time. The batter may look curdled at this point. It's okay just keep mixing. Stop the mixer and scrap the sides. Return the mixer to med-low.
- Add the flour mixture and either vanilla extract or lemon zest and extract, depending on which you prefer. Scrap down sides and allow to beat about 30 seconds.
- Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
- Bake 45 to 50 minutes. Test cake by inserting a wooden pick into the center. If the pick is clean or has dry crumbs the cake is cooked perfectly. Dark pans cook faster than light pans as well as if you put the pan on a cookie sheet to bake. (I ALWAYS put cakes or pies on another pan to prevent spills from leaking in the oven.) Watch the time and cake carefully according to your oven and your pans.
- Allow cake to cool on wire rack 15 minutes before inverting onto serving tray.
Notes
Nutrition
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This was so easy and delicious! It came out perfect! Mine came out a bit darker on top (I think it was my pan), but perfectly moist inside. I make my own whole milk yogurt and use the whey from straining to make the whole milk ricotta. Yummy!
How much lemon extract & zest?
1 teaspoon lemon extract and zest from 1 lemon
Made the pound cake and I added blueberries to one excellent. Did take a little longer to bake but definitely will do again
Can I use light ricotta for this? Do I need to make any other changes to the recipe if I’m using light?
I haven’t tested it with light ricotta. And I’m not familiar with light ricotta. Typically, full fat ingredients are recommended for baking;.
I used 15oz low fat ricotta, tastes just fine. My only problem was with the cooking time – needed 30 minutes extra than recommended 45.
Very tasty! This recipe was easy to convert to gluten-free. I cooked it for 80 minutes
and it was perfect.
What brand of Gluten Free Flour did you use? My daughter was recently diagnosed with Siliac (?) and so far we haven’t found a good Gluten Free flour.It is most discouraging
Thank you in advance for your reply
I seemingly tried them all before I found King Arthur measure for measure gluten free flour. It is by far the tastiest and it makes baking gluten free super easy – you substitute it one for one in to any of your regular gluten recipes and it comes out perfect every time! Your daughter will no longer have to go without her favorite baked goods.
Would the pound cake need to be kept in fridge or is it ok to leave out since it has ricotta in it
It can be left on counter.
I just got done making this and went with the instructions. The only difference was I only had skim ricotta cheese. And I did not use lemon juice in it just the vanilla extract.
It did need to be baked longer then it says. Had it for atleast 75 minutes. And even then the middle was still wet. 🙁
The flavor…well it took me and my husband by surprise as it did NOT taste like pound cake but a moist and very sweet cornbread! Despite that, we actually liked it lol.
Oh my goodness, this looks so amazing. I never thought about using ricotta cheese and I bet it’s so moist. Yum!
Very easy to make, I like it, it’s going into my recipe box.
I am making this for a dinner in two days. Should it be refrigerated and then served at room tempt?
Yes, that’s what I usually do.
My family loved it! I couldn’t keep our 8 month old German Shepherd and 5 year old Pomeagle out of the kitchen! They kept begging for more slices!
Excellent! It did take longer to cook than the recipe said – I also accidentally used a cup of butter rather 3/4! Still, when all was said and done – yum! Better the next day and on it’s own. I also made a raspberry brandy sauce and then topped with whipped cream.
You can always leave ricotta in a cheesecloth over a bowl to really get the moisture out of it or try finding hand-packed ricotta.
oh, thanks for the tip! I agree it’s better the next day. I like your brandy sauce!! Thanks for commenting.
I seldom leave comments anywhere for recipes I’ve tried, but I had to leave one for this. This pound cake turned out amazing- my family loved it. I didn’t tell them there was ricotta in the cake- they were pleasantly surprised. It was so light and airy and moist. I followed the directions, except instead of picking lemon or vanilla, I used the vanilla and added 1.5 tbsp of lemon zest. Both those flavours just went beautifully together. Finished with a little powdered sugar on top. Highly recommend this recipe.
Thank you so much! I’m happy you and your family enjoyed it.
Can you freeze this loaf cake? If not how far in advance can you bake this.
Yes, you can freeze it up to 2 months
Wow this pound cake is amazing! I had some home made ricotta that I needed I find a use for and I’m so glad I tried this recipe. I do a lot of baking and this was one of the best things I’ve made in a while. I made the lemon version and followed the recipe exactly except for using about 1/4 cup of raw sugar since I ran out of white. It did take a lot longer to bake but I wasn’t sure if that was because my ricotta was wetter than store bought. I think it took about an hour and 10 minutes. I’m definitely saving this recipe and may even make it again today to use up the rest of my ricotta!
I’m so glad you liked it! (I want to make homemade ricotta!!)
Can I use low fat ricotta?
Typically low-fat and fat-free ingredients don’t work well in baked products.
I had a similar thing happen. I think it took 1:10 for it to bake through in the center. I’m attributing it to either my measuring of the ricotta or the ricotta being too wet. I weighed out 12 oz of ricotta, which to me was 1 1/2 cups. That may not be the case – so maybe I used too much ricotta. HOWEVER, the finished product was “outtasite!” as we used to say – delicious and perfectly baked. A HUGE hit! 😉