Glazed Ricotta Cheese Loaf

By SweetnSpicyLiving on December 1, 2019 • ( 2 Comments )

This Lemon Ricotta Cheese Loaf has a nice moist texture, it is creamy with subtle lemon and almond flavor. A great breakfast option, perfect for tea time or for Holiday get together.

This Lemon Ricotta Cheese Loaf has every ingredient possible to make it creamy, soft and moist. It has a wonderful light crumb texture, the small amount of Almond flour gave this loaf a loose crumb, but at the same time not too loose that it crumble and breaks easily. The ricotta cheese, yogurt and oil gave this loaf cake a wonderful moist and soft texture enough to hold and give structure. I don’t make as much Ricotta baked goods that often, but when I do, this is always the first on my list. Ricotta has a nice, rich and creamy taste. It is creamy, but not as overwhelming as cream cheese. The texture is coarse and loose, not a solid brick that you need to soften. Let me walk you through on how I made this loaf bread or cake. Let us start with the ingredients, and a quick summary on how you can make this.

Ingredients for Almond Ricotta Loaf Cake

Butter – Provides creamy taste
Sugar – Provides sweetness
Egg – Binds the ingredients together and give structure to the cake
Ricotta Cheese – Provides a creamy taste and adds moisture to the cake
Yogurt – Yogurt is known for adding moisture to the bake products
Oil – Makes the cake soft and moist even when stored in the refrigerator
All-Purpose Flour – This is the base dry ingredient that will give structure to the cake. I wouldn’t recommend using cake flour as the it could get too crumbly.
Almond Flour – Adds a nice almond flavor and nice texture to the cake. Makes the crumb slightly loose as crumbly, like a cake.
Baking Soda & Baking Powder – Acts as leavening agent to make the cake rise
Milk – Gives a lighter crumb to the cake
Lemon Zest – For flavoring, this adds freshness to the cake
Salt – Adds taste, balances sweetness

How to Make Lemon Ricotta Cheese Loaf

Here’s a quick summary of how to make this loaf cake, the details are just below.

Cream butter, Sugar and Egg: All ingredients must be in room temperature so that it creams better. Take egg and butter out of the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before using it. The butter should be soft but not oily.
Wet ingredients: Add ricotta cheese and yogurt – room temperature as well
Dry Ingredients: Mix all dry ingredients plus lemon zest (if using)
Wet ingredients + Dry Ingredients: Add dry ingredients with wet ingredients alternately with milk and oil.
Pour, Bake and let cool completely
Make the Sugar Glaze by mixing icing sugar and water or milk. You can easily adjust the consistency of the glaze by adding more liquid or reducing the liquid. Add the liquid gradually so that you can easily stop once you get the consistency that you like.
Drizzle sugar glaze on top and sprinkle some sliced almonds

Tips for Soft and Moist Lemon Ricotta Loaf

Room Temperature Ingredients: this rule is basic when making cake, cookies, cupcakes, bars and other baked products that requires creaming or intense mixing to make the consistency light and fluffy. Room temperature ingredients Mix easily together. Leave the ingredients at the counter top at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before using it. Time could vary depending on the temperature and humidity in you kitchen. For butter, when you press it with you thumb it should create an indention without any extra push effort.
Creaming Butter, Sugar and Egg: this process creates air into the mixture thus making the loaf lighter and less dense.
Combination of Butter + Oil: Although using pure butter is more delicious, using both provides a balance of nice taste and good moisture in the cake. The oil specially makes the cake moist and the butter provides creamy taste. Using all butter could dry out the cake easily specially when store in the refrigerator because butter hardens. Using all oil coil make the loaf to wet and greasy, so a combination of both is the way to go.
Sifted Flour: In step 4, I mentioned to sift the flour while alternating the addition of milk into the batter. Sifting the flour avoids lumps, helps produce a lighter cake and lessen the time to mix the batter. The longer the batter is mixed, the tougher the cake will be.

Ok, it’s now time to put all what we’ve learned into action. Let’s get started!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Unsalted Butter – room temperature (soft but not melted)
1/4 cup plain Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Granulated Sugar
1/2 cup Ricotta Cheese – completely drained, excess water removed (– room temperature)
1 Egg – room temperature
3/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 Almond Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 cup Milk – room temperature (Warm in microwave for 15 seconds if coming form refrigerator)
3 tbsp Flavorless Oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Lemon Zest of 1 Lemon

Sugar Glaze:

1/2 cup Icing Sugar
4 tsp Milk or Water or Lemon Juice
Zest of 1 Lemon

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F and position a rack in the center. Grease a 8-inch loaf pan with nonstick and line with parchment paper. Make 1-inch allowance overhang for the parchment paper so that it is easier to out the cake. You can also use round pan but you need to adjust the baking time depending on the pan size.
Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, sift all purpose flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest and salt. Set aside.
Mix Wet Ingredients: In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar on medium speed until smooth and light, about 5 minutes. The texture should look somewhat like a thick white whipped cream. Reduce speed to low and add ricotta cheese and yogurt. Continue mixing for another 1 minute or until just combined. Beat in egg, it may curdle a little bit at this point, don’t worry about it, it will adjust once you add the dry ingredients. Add vanilla extract and mix until just distributed.
Add dry ingredients and milk+oil mixture alternately: On low speed, sift 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients mixture. Mix for about 15 seconds then add 1/2 of the milk and oil mixture, continue mixing for another 15 seconds. Scrape down sides of the bowl, sift the remaining half of the dry ingredients, mix for another 15 seconds then add remaining milk and oil mixture and mix for another 15 seconds or just until everything is combined. Do not over mix as it could toughen the cake.
- Sifting the flour while adding it to the butter mixture will help the cake have a lighter texture and will also make the mixing easier thus avoiding over mixing. So don’t just dump the dry ingredients all at once.
Pour batter into prepared pan and use a spatula to smooth the top.
Bake cake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake springs back lightly when touched, the sides have begun to pull away from the pan, and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean
Cool: Allow loaf to cool completely in pan before pouring the glaze (if using one)
Dust with confectioners sugar on top or drizzle/cover with sugar glaze

Lemon Sugar Glaze:

Gradually add milk to icing sugar and stir until smooth. Add lemon zest (if using). Add more liquid to thin it out, or add more sugar for thicker and sweet consistency. Adjust the consistency as desired.