It's been a busy past few months! The blog rather fell by the way side amidst making 2 wedding cakes and 2 celebration cakes in the space of a month (perhaps I shall share some photos later), travelling around the south of England on research and studying. I also gave my first conference paper this week, oh my pretty scary stuff but quite fun, they also feed us and free food is always a bonus, especially accompanied with free alcohol, I think I could get used to this conference thing!
Anyway, I do have quite a backlog of recipes to share with you now that things have quietened down a little. Today though I want to share something really really simple yet incredibly delicious, just to ease us back into this game!
Peach season is upon us! I think peaches have to be my favourite fruit and I can demolish a punnet of peaches in a day, but thats ok because they're totally healthy so I don't feel too bad about it. My favourite has to be the yellow flesh peaches they just seem so much sweeter and juicer than the white flesh, and necatrines? forget about it. Is it just me or do they taste weird? But yes, peaches. Peaches are delicious and I'm so happy that I can get them in the supermarkets again. I love that they are only sold in season since I think that fruit sold out of season is just kind of meh... you know the strawberries in December that just taste like water or Blueberries that have literally no tartness or sweetness just mushiness. Ick. Well its the season for Peaches, Strawberries and Blueberries so I am one happy camper right now! My three favourite fruits right at my finger tips in all their sweet, tart, juicy glory! It's also the season where the weather gets warmer which seems really nice at first, until it's too warm, you know that british thing right? There's like a 3 degree window of too warm... too cold. Yesterday was one of those days that it was a case of nope... too hot. But a girl still want's dessert! Just, not turning on the oven because oh dear god please no more heat.
This is where today's recipe comes in. Here at the grad house we try to eat healthy, sure the odd bar of chocolate sneaks its way into my belly more often than it should occassionally... but we try to get plenty of fruit and wholegrains and cook things from scratch so we know what's in them. We're still working on the vegetables because we have very different tastes in those! I love broccoli, sprouts, green beans, cabbage, Mr Grad... not so much. But that's another post and another recipe! So, eating healthy, this fruit salad is a really easy way to get delicious fruit into you diet without having to munch your way through endless apples. As a bonus it also has the flavours of Mojito in it which has to be like the best drink ever. What's not to love??
Rooting through the fridge this morning in a desperate search for breakfast I came across two forgotten tubs of Ricotta cheese lurking in the back. It seems I'd bought them a while back and totally forgotten they were there... oops! They were about to expire (today! double oops!) So I had some quick thinking to do. I hate wasting food, especially delicious food like Ricotta. Since Mr. Grad started working I don't care to prepare lunch for just one person particularly so pasta was out, even though I have some wonderful recipes for Ricotta pasta it was just not a pasta day! But cake? It's always a cake day! You can make Ricotta cake right?
Google to the rescue! Turns out you can! Though none of them seemed to tickle my fancy, so I spent way too long searching for recipes. Ina Garten's Lemon Yogurt Cake looked just the thing! Only I decided to use Ricotta instead of yogurt and Olive Oil instead of vegetable oil. I got into using Olive Oil in cakes rather than vegetable oil after spending the summer with Mr. Grad's parents in Italy, yes Mr. Grad is Italian! So the whole Lemon, Ricotta, Olive Oil is also a delightfully Italian combination. They aren't big on butter or vegetable oil in Italy so I had to get creative! Carrot cake made with olive oil? delicious! Lemon Olive Oil cake? Awesome! And not just olive oil but Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which I know many baker's balk at for its strong flavour, but done right it really adds another depth to the cake.
So Ina's recipe, I took a look at it and changed it. 200g of sugar is way too much, so I reduced it down to 150g for the first try. Ricotta instead of Yogurt and EVOO instead of Vegetable oil. I also added in a tsp of Lemon Extract to boost the flavour a bit, after all the Ricotta and EVOO don't need to overpower the Lemon. The result was such a moist and tangy cake, really really delicious! Mr Grad called it 'a taste of home' good praise indeed me thinks!
For the second cake (hey I did have TWO tubs!) I chucked in a handful of blueberries too because blueberries and lemon are just a divine combination. I also reduced the sugar further to 100g as the blueberries add their own sweetness. Too much sweetness can really kill a cake.
