Sicilian-Style Ricotta Cheesecake. This beautifully light cheesecake is an Italian favourite.
Sicilian-Style Ricotta Cheesecake
Serves 8
1¼ cups plain flour
½ cup (55g) almond meal
125g butter, diced and chilled
1 egg yolk
¾ cup blanched almonds
500g fresh ricotta
½ cup caster sugar
¾ cup sour cream
2 eggs, whisked
100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
150g glacé apricots or glacé figs, roughly chopped
50ml Amaretto liqueur
1 tbsp cornflour
icing sugar, to serve
1 Process flour and almond meal in a food processor for 20 seconds or until combined. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg yolk and process until mixture just comes together. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Form into a 3cm-thick disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2 Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 22cm (base) x 3.5cm (deep) loose-bottomed fluted flan tin with butter. Put almonds on a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden. Cool.
3 Meanwhile, roll pastry out between 2 sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick. Line prepared baking tin with pastry. Trim pastry by running a rolling pin over the top of the baking tin. Put in freezer for 10 minutes. Cover pastry shell with baking paper and fill paper with pastry beads or rice. Put baking tin on a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove paper and weights and cook for a further 10 minutes or until light golden. Cool. Reduce oven temperature to 180C.
4 Roughly chop toasted almonds and put in a bowl. Add ricotta, sugar, sour cream, egg, chocolate, apricot, Amaretto and cornflour. Stir until well combined. Spoon ricotta mixture into pastry shell. Bake for 45 minutes or until filling is just set. Turn oven off. Leave oven door ajar and cool cheesecake in oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven and cool. Chill for 2 hours before serving. Dust with icing sugar to serve.