Piece of cake - Labor Day

I might be jinxed, because my home computer has frozen and not allowed me to finish this post. I had to move to Paul's Mac and I am not at all used to using a Mac. This weekend so far I have made, Anzac biscuits with a drizzle of choc fudge, mini choc chip muffins, poached breast of chicken with salsa verde, green beans and preserved lemon wholemeal couscous and now this cake.

I was inspired by a Donna Hay lemon and yoghurt cake that my friend Carly told me she had made the other day. I decided to make an orange and ricotta almond torte. This is what I put in it:

125grams unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 cup raw organic sugar

2 eggs

1 cup ricotta

zest of one orange

juice of half an orange

1 and a half cups of almond meal

1/2 cup of self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Turn on oven to 180 degrees. Butter, flour and line a 20 cm cake tin. Beat butter and sugar till creamy add one egg at a time beating well after each egg and then add the zest. Next add th ricotta, almond meal, flour and baking powder and stir through, then mix in the orange juice.

Now for baking I will have to take you through the trials and tribulations. The DH version of lemon and yoghurt cake calls for 45 min at 180 c.

Because this cake will be dense due to the almond meal I decided to try to bake for 50 mins, then I checked with a wooden skewer to make sure it is cooked through before removing. However, I found mine really browned on top quickly so I turned it down from 180 to about 160 - I have a hot oven though.

When I took it out and cooled it for 10 mins I removed it from the pan and found the bottom of the cake in the middle a little wet so I put on a flat tray and returned to the oven for another 20 mins on 160 degrees celcius. I think because this is such a dense mixture you do have to cook it for longer on a lower temperature. It was lovely and moist when Elliot had the first slice.

Ideally I think it would be nice with a lovely dollop of greek yoghurt on the side and maybe a strawberry.