Berry Delicious!

Sometimes I browse the culinary internet just to browse. When I find something that looks delish it often gets linked to The Husband and when I get a positive response I hit "print."  That recipe goes into the big folder of ideas marked "too make." OK, not really. I'm not that organized. In honesty they either disappear into some dark corner of my personal desk at home before eventually being tossed along with other mess. Or, if they are lucky, pushed between the leaves of a cookbook for future "oh I should make that" commentary before I get to the recipe I was really looking for.

But every now and then a recipe actually makes it past that phase. It usually involves some combination of fate and luck. And this week, while I was contemplating The Box, I happened to look up and notice, peaking out from under some mail, a recipe I had printed off from just last week. A recipe that, with a little modification, could make this:

Into a fantastic, moist, cake.

This cake is a quick bread, meaning it's more like a bread than a cake and more like a muffin than a bread. In culinary terms it means it's a bread leavened with Baking Powder. This also means you follow the Muffin Method, which involves combining the wet and dry ingredients separately and then mixing them together in as few stirs as possible to prevent gluten formation. I learned this from watching "Good Eats" religiously back when the Food Network was still educational (DO you remember that?).

So the first step is to beat together the eggs and the sugar until the combination is light and fluffy. I used Clara (she's the hand mixer).

Next slowly beat in the butter. I forgot to bring my butter to room temperature ahead of time, so I went for the microwave quick soften. 30 seconds at a time at a low power setting.  Most of my butter remained solid as you can see.

Then add the Ricotta and Buttermilk. If I was a true culinary expert I would say something about how the Buttermilk adds tang, density and does something with the Baking Powder. But I'm not, otherwise I would know what that something was. Anyway, add and beat together.

Next zest three Lemons. Zesting means removing the outer layer of the peel of some kind of citrus. That's the part that has color, not the white pithy stuff underneath. The only proper way to do this is to use a micro-plane zester (which I happen to have) and gently run the zester over the surface of the fruit pressing lightly.

Next, add the zest and the vanilla and give it a good solid beat. You can wash your beater now, you won't be needing it. Carla is very efficient at mixing ingredients together but in the muffin method, when it comes to combining dry and wet, the Hand Mixer is too harsh and the end result is a dry bread with a lot of deep air pockets. Edible but not the desired texture.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Then gently  fold the wet into the dry, the texture should be nicely combined, but removing all the lumps is overdoing it.

Finally fold in the blackberries, I made it a point to break up the berry as I folded since they were a little bit larger then the blueberries that the original recipe called for. I was hoping it would add more of a berry flavor throughout the bread and I think I was right.

Pour the batter into a single bread pan that's been prepped either by using parchment paper like I did, or by buttering and flouring the sides.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately an hour or until a toothpick inserted is free from batter. Mine took an hour and 15 minutes. It might have something to do with the difference in berries or the fact that I was using a Toaster oven to bake the bread. Either way, just keep coming back to it every 5 minutes or so until it's done.

Allow the bread to cool completely in the pan.

Remove and dust with powdered sugar for a lovely, finished look.

The End Result:

THE VERDICT:

YUM! This is a great recipe. It would certainly transition nicely into muffins if you wanted it to, but stood up on its own. The Husband was also a big fan, even though he got a Blackberry seed stuck in his teeth. Oops.

The Recipe:
Recipe Credit goes to georgiapellegrini  over at TastyKitchen.com and can be found HERE.

• 2 Whole Eggs
• 1-1/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 Stick Unsalted Butter at Room Temperature
• 1/2 Cup Ricotta Cheese
• 1 Tsp Vanilla
• The Zest of 3 Lemons
• 1/2 Cup Buttermilk
• 1 -3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Salt
• 1 Cup Blackberries
• Powdered Sugar for Dusting (If you are fancy)

1. Add the eggs and sugar to a large bowl and beat until thoroughly combined and lightened in color. 
2. Beat in the butter followed by the ricotta cheese, vanilla, lemon zest and buttermilk.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. 
4. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet until mixed. 
5. Fold in the Blackberries and mix by hand just until combined.
6. Pour the batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan and bake in a preheated 350ºF oven for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. 
7. Allow to cool before removing from the pan and dust with powdered sugar, if desired.