4 extra large eggs, separated
2/3 cups sugar
1 1/8 cups ricotta
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup tablespoons pine nuts (optional)
Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon, mixed in with 1 teaspoon sugar

For decoration (Optional)
about 1/8 cup icing sugar

Equipment needed
a deep 9 1/2-inch cake pan, well-greased, with a removable bottom

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric beater, beat egg yolks and sugar until creamy.

Add the flour and the baking powder to the mixture.

Add the finely grated lemon zest and mix well.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.

Place one quarter of the beaten egg whites in a bowl and mix it gently with the ricotta.

Add the pine nuts to the ricotta mixture (optional).

Mix the ricotta mixture with the egg-sugar-and-flour mixture.

Fold in the remaining egg whites.

Place the batter in a well-greased cake with a removable bottom.

Bake until the center is dry and the cake is ready -- about 25 to 35 minutes.

Cool.

Before serving dust with icing sugar (Optional).

The recipe in this entry was adapted from "La Tavola Italiana" by Tom Maresca and Diane Darrow (New York: W. Morrow, 1988). The cookbook can be borrowed for free from the on-line library, www.openlibrary.org.... I tried this recipe and found it quite good, but not out of the ordinary. Even though the ingredients are very similar to those used in a traditional Italian ricotta pie, the pies (in my opinion) are much better than any "cake" that can be made with ricotta. The pies use less flour, so they have more of a cheesy flavor. Still, if one wants a high protein dessert, and one doesn't want the trouble of making a ricotta pie, this recipe is good enough. It's not a tall cake, but it's a nice enough size. The original recipe suggests that one use a pie dish for baking, but this will cause problems as the cake doubles in volume while baking and then falls when it cools. If one uses a pie dish, the batter will splatter. Also, the original recipe called for more than half the pine nuts ("pignoli") to be placed on top of the cake as decoration prior to putting it in the oven. One can do this, but then one might end up with burnt pine nuts. Personally, I wouldn't want to risk it. I myself didn't use pine nuts to make the cake, as they are expensive, and don't add enough flavor to justify their cost. Lightly roasted pine nuts do taste better than raw ones, so one might consider roasting them prior to including them in the cake, but that's up to the one making the cake. Or one can make a glaze after the cake is cooked, and place the pine nuts on top of the glaze. As decoration I made an orange-strawberry-glaze for this cake, and topped it with slivered almonds rather than pine nuts, as I myself prefer almonds to pine nuts (I made the glaze using 1 cup icing sugar, 2 teaspoons orange juice and 1 pureed fresh strawberry; the glaze doesn't stay fresh for long because of the pureed strawberry, so it's not something I would necessarily advice to do, still, the pink-colored looked pretty enough). Any type of glaze, a lemon glaze or frosting, will make this cake more appealing to the eye. Personally I don't like glazes or thick frosting, but most people do, so I sometimes make them just to please my guests. No recipe is written in stone, be it traditional or not. ... Personal comments and photo: Mary Melfi.

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