There’s something uniquely delicious about fruit loaves—and anyone who makes banana bread regularly can attest to that. Although these types of dishes also work really well as a light dessert, they’re also perfect for a hearty breakfast or a snack alongside a cup of coffee or tea. While we’re all familiar with banana bread, lemon loaves are another very popular entry in this category. Still, you may not have ever had a lemon loaf quite like the one we’re going to make today.
Today’s recipe is for a lemon ricotta pound cake, recipe that combines all the best things about a normal lemon pound cake with some additional creamy flavor. As always, the recipe is very straightforward to make and doesn’t require any fancy ingredients. At the end, you’ll have a delicious and flexible snack around the house available for whenever hunger seems to strike. So let’s get started.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Cake:
- 1 3/4 cups of cake flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, softened
- 4 eggs
- 1 lemon, juiced and zested
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 teaspoon of lemon extract (optional)
Syrup:
- 1/4 cup of lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
Here’s what you do:
1. To get started, make sure you preheat your oven to 325 degrees and grease up a 9×5-inch baking pan as well. Next, get out a large mixing bowl and add your cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk everything together until it’s well-combined and set it aside.
2. After that, get out a smaller mixing bowl and add your ricotta, lemon juice and lemon zest, stirring that together as well. Set that aside and in a third bowl, preferably attached to an electric mixer, cream together your butter and sugar for about two to three minutes. The result should be a fluffy, light mixture.
3. Next, beat your eggs into the butter cream one at a time. When that’s done, you can add in your lemon and vanilla extracts as well. At this stage, start adding your dry ingredients and ricotta mix also, alternating between the two and scraping down the bowl between mixes.
4. Once the batter has been completely combined, pour it into your greased dish and throw it in the oven to bake for 50 minutes to an hour. In the meantime, you can make your simple syrup! Do this by whisking together lemon juice and sugar in a small pan over medium-high heat. Bring it to a boil and let it cook for a minute before turning the heat down so that it boils gently for two to three minutes. Once it’s thickened, take it off the heat.
5. At the end of your baking time, do the toothpick test to make sure the loaf is cooked. If it looks good, let it cool off before adding your cooled simple syrup as well, pouring it or brushing all over the cake so that it absorbs. If you need to pierce the cake with a fork to help it absorb the liquid, do that as well.
6. After letting the cake sit for a few hours to absorb all the syrup, top it with powdered sugar and you’re ready to eat!
As you can see, this recipe is not too different from any lemon loaf you’ve had in the past. Still, the addition of the syrup at the end for moisture and the ricotta for texture truly takes this recipe to the next level. If the syrup at the end isn’t enough for you, feel free to add a simple glaze on top as well! Above all, have fun with the process and let us know what you think!
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