For the last few weeks, since Helsinki warmed up, I’ve been planning to make a light, summery dessert. This is it! And it couldn’t be easier!

 

First of all, hello from Sinop, Turkey! I’m finally on holiday! I briefly passed from Istanbul on Tuesday evening and yesterday morning, I came to Sinop, the teeny tiny city on the Black Sea coast of Turkey – its northernmost point. I was supposed to be on the beach at this very moment however Black Sea is always unpredictable and there’s a mini storm happening in the sea today (oops).

 

 

Anyway, back to the dessert. As I wrote at the beginning, this is a very easy and fast one and it must be eaten warm. So actually, when you think of a summery dessert, you would normally think cool or even cold desserts, ice cream, sorbet etc. No, this is a warm dessert, but it’s still very light.

 

 

 

The ingredients are not hard to find in every day kitchen. You may just lack this large amount of ricotta on a regular basis at home, but other than it is very easy to find the ingredients in your cupboards.

 

 

The process could not be simpler: just mix all the ingredients, put in the oven dish and bake for 20 minutes! In the meantime, make the easiest mini syrup and when the dessert is out of the oven, just pour the syrup on the hot dessert. Decorate in any way you like (toasted almonds are very tasty but you can replace it with other kinds of nuts, or even berries or summer fruits as well) and serve right away! Done!
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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty:  ★☆☆ (Easy)
(serves 4-6, baked in a 23cm diameter oven dish)

 

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

 

40 gr. butter, softened in room temperature, plus a bit more to grease the oven dish
4 tbsp (55 gr) granulated white sugar
2 tbsp honey (I used acacia honey, but if you want a stronger taste, use more aromatic one – lavender honey could be interesting!)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
380 gr. ricotta (about 1 1/2 cups, or 3.75 dl)
2 tbsp rice flour (or stronger almond taste and a bit more texture, same amount of almond flour)

 

For honey orange syrup:
80 gr. honey
Juice and zest of half of a large orange

 

To decorate (optional)
75 gr toasted almonds, roughly chopped (you can use a lot more if you like almonds!
if you don’t like or have almonds: other kinds of nuts you like, preferably toasted
if you don’t want nuts or if you want to just make the dessert fresher: berries and summer fruits
to give more lovely colours: edible flowers

 

 

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1. Preheat the oven to 225C. Grease your oven dish and put aside. I used a ceramic oven dish for this, you can also use glass dishes and if you don’t have a round dish, you can use a small rectangle one. Just don’t use a springform cake pan.

 

2. In this version, I used electric mixer, however it is very easy to just whisk everything by hand as long as the butter is soft enough. In a mixing bowl, put butter, sugar and honey and beat until it is smooth on medium speed.

 

 

 

 

 

3. Add lightly beaten eggs and continue beating on medium speed until you have a smooth mixture. Scrape the sides with a spatula if you need.

 

 

 

 

4. Add ricotta and rice (or almond) flour and continue to beat until all ingredients are incorporated.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Transfer the mixture to your oven dish and make the surface smooth using a spatula. Put in the oven, in medium rack and bake for 20 minutes, until its edges start browning.

 

 

6. While the dessert is in the oven, put all the ingredients for syrup in a small saucepan and cook on medium heat by whisking, until honey is well dissolved in orange juice. Put aside until dessert is out of the oven.

 

 

 

 

7. When the dessert is out, pour the syrup all over it and let it sit for a few minutes. Decorate it with whatever toppings you want and serve immediately! Enjoy!