Flourless Mandarin Cake & Baci Di Ricotta (Ricotta Kisses)

Had the opportunity to test our a Flourless Mandarin Cake since there were so many Mandarin Oranges lying around over Chinese New Year and also something called Baci Di Ricotta which I believe means Ricotta Kisses.

Both are courtesy of Nigella Lawson but as usual I cannot resist tweaking them to suit my tastebuds.

The Flourless Mandarin Cake can be adapted to an Orange cake (no brainer there) and obviously I've reduced the sugar. It's moist, light, tender and it has this great little bitter edge to it from the pith of the Mandarins. I'm going to try it with Oranges and in all likelihood it will end up on our menu as a tea cake. In other words, we will sell it in loaves with no icing on it.



The Baci on the other hand, needs to be eaten just about straight off the stove. It tastes just divine when it's eaten warm. Soft, pillowy, with a hint of rich egginess and replete with the warmth of cinnamon. I tweaked it for my tastebuds, but again, thank you Nigella.


Baci Di Ricotta (Ricotta Kisses) - What could be better for tea than something that serves up kisses to eat? Love and tummy yums all in one!

200 g of Ricotta Cheese
2 eggs
75g cake flour (Nigella uses plain flour but I find cake flour gives it a tenderness that's appropriate)
1 ½ tsp of baking powder
Pinch of Salt (Be generous)
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg (My addition - I love my spices)
1 Tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla (I tried it with Orange Flower Water as well or 2 tsps orange zest)
Vegetable oil for frying
2 tsps icing sugar to serve (If you don't have icing sugar, do what I did and whiz your caster sugar in a blender then sieve it...almost the same thing)

1. Break the eggs into the ricotta and whisk it until it’s smooth.
2. Mix in the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg vanilla and caster
sugar. Mix till smooth
3. Heat up the oil and drop in a small amount to check if its hot enough.
It should brown quite quickly. The funny thing is, if it's shaped well enough
when you drop it into the oil, it'll turn itself. ;-) But do watch it and
give it a hand if it doesn't. Don't do too many at once.
4. Drop in each one in teaspoon sizes. They will grow and inflate.
5. Stack them into a pyramid as in the piccy and sieve your icing sugar onto it
thickly. YUM!