Fresh Ricotta Cheese Cakes - With Fox Hill Milk

One of the things I love about classic Italian food is how simple it is and how it really highlights ingredients.  Therefore I decided to honor the high quality milk from Fox Hill by making little ricotta cheese cakes.  These are lighter that cheese cake made from sour cream and cream cheese but are just as tasty.  This is very simple to make and it has nice clean flavors that you are sure to enjoy.  

Ingredients:

1/2 pound fresh ricotta cheese (recipe)

2.5 Tbsp White Sugar

2 T Flour

2 Eggs

1/4 Tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Orange zest

1 tsp Vanilla

1/8 tsp sea salt

20 dark chocolate disks

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Prepare 4 ramekins by greasing the insides with butter then flour.  Tap out the excess flour. Ensure the entire surface is covered with butter and flour or the cakes will stick.

In a mixing bowl add sugar to ricotta, and stir with a whisk until somewhat smooth, then whisk in flour and eggs (one at a time).  When you have a smooth batter add in cinnamon, orange zest, vanilla and salt and beat again.  

Fill each ramekin about half way, then put 5 chocolate disks in each one then top each with the remaining batter.  ramekins should be about 3/4 full.  Do not fill to the top.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 40 minutes to an hour.  They will get golden on the top.  They are going to puff up but will fall when cooling, that is expected dont be alarmed.

When the are done remove to a wire cooling rack and refrigerate.   Top them with a cool strawberry sauce and a little powdered sugar.  

As always thanks to my local suppliers:

Milk for Ricotta : Fox Hill Cheese House

Eggs: Shani’s Farm

These suppliers are located at the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market

A note about the Cinnamon I used:

While at the international day which is held every Friday at the Halifax Market I ran into a vendor who was selling spices and teas from Ceylon.  As with most of the vendors at the market he was passionate about his product.  His company imports spices directly from Ceylon from a fair trade cooperative of farmers.  He stressed the freshness of the product as well as the quality.  He was proud that the farmers could make a good living providing a high quality product, this is what we want for all of our farmers .  I ground up 2 cinnamon sticks to test and it was amazing.  The scent had an amazing citrus note to it and the cinnamon taste was great.   I will be doing a blog of them soon after I have sampled a few more products but had to give them props for the cinnamon.  They can be found at the market on international day and their website.

Ricotta Cheese with Fox Hill Milk

I love italian food.  Can't get enough of it.  I have already given you a recipe for a great tomato sauce, and now I will show you how to make ricotta cheese.  Ricotta is used as a filling for ravioli or other stuffed pasta, it is used in lasagna and is also fantastic for making all kinds of desserts.  You can get ricotta in the stores but trust me this is much better.  It is so soft, smooth, and creamy.  It has a clean rich flavor that can't be matched by the cheese you get at your local factory food outlet.

This recipe uses 2 L of Fox Hill milk and will yield about half a pound of ricotta.  It is very simple to do and it will be worth the effort.  If you do not use Fox Hill Milk then you will need to as about 3/4 cup of cream into the mixture to get a nice rich ricotta.  I have made this a number of times and I can tell you honestly tell you using Fox Hill’s milk results in the best ricotta that I have had.  It only makes sense as the more natural the product the better the results will be.

I will be using this cheese in several recipes I will blog later but this will go great in any recipe you have that uses ricotta cheese.  

Ingredients

2 L Unhomogenized Milk or 2 L Whole Milk and 3/4 cup cream

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp salt

Cheese Cloth (this will be required to drain the cheese)

Add the milk and salt to a heavy bottom pot or dutch oven and heat the milk to 180 degrees.  Be careful to not let the milk boil.  Make sure you put the thermometer into the milk deep enough to get an accurate reading.  When the milk is to temperature add in the lemon juice and gently stir it in one or two stirs, do not aggressively stir because you do not want the curds to be broken up.  

Turn the heat to low and allow to cook for 15 minutes longer.  Again do not let it come to a boil.  After 15 minutes turn off the pot and cover.  Allow to sit for about 30 minutes to an hour or until you see the curds formed and the liquid separating.  You will see the milk curdle when you add the lemon juice this is not what you are looking for.  You want the milk solids to really form up or the liquid will not strain off.

When this is completed line a colander with several layers of cheese cloth.  Slowly pour the mixture into the cheese cloth and allow to drain until all of the liquid has passed through.  (About 30 min to an hour).  You can then take the cheese and put it in a storage container and refrigerate or use it right away.  It will stay fresh 2 to 3 days.

Special thanks to Fox Hill Cheese House for making such a wonderful product.

Fox Hill Cheese House HAS MILK!!!!!!

I have been a big fan Fox Hill Cheese House for 4 or 5 years now.  I have an issue with commercial milk products.  Something in the processing causes me to have itching on my hands and I get stuffed up.  I thought I was reacting to dairy products which was really strange because it was never an issue for the first 30 years of my life.  Being a cheese freak I could not stop eating cheese and when I heard about Fox Hill I drove right up the next weekend for some cheese.  The first thing I noticed was that I did not react.  I decided to test it out and went back and bought some gelato and some cheese curd and consumed it all in one night (the sacrifices we make).  No reaction at all.  I was thrilled.  I have been a customer ever sense.

When I was visiting them I heard the story of how they graze, and care for their cows.  How much care they take to ensure there are no antibiotics in their milk and how they use their own milk to make their products.  The level of pride they show in their business and the food they produce shows through.  You can tell that pleasing their customers is the priority of Fox Hill.

When they came out with bottled milk I had to try it and ran down to the Halifax Seaport Farmers Market to get my bottle (ok, 3 bottles, oh yeah got 5 more...).  The milk is pasteurized so no fear there but except for that and the Vitamin D they have to put in it is unprocessed.  You have to shake it because the cream will rise to the top but when you drink it, wow, fresh cold milk, you can taste the cream and natural sugars.  It is amazing.  I had my first glass of milk & cookies for the first time in years.  It is by far the best milk I have ever had.  And no reaction at all. 

Factory milk essentially has the crap kicked out of it, they separate off all the cream using a centrifuge, high temperature pasteurize it, then pump in milk fat to the prescribed percentage, add back vitamins they destroy in the processing of the milk and homogenize the milk.  Of course this allows them to use the cream in other applications, make modified milk ingredients and allows dairies to make more profit off their raw material.  The final product is not however whole milk.  As with most things produced in factories you end up with a poor copy of the real thing.

At 3 dollars a liter the milk is cheaper than the organic milk sold in the factory food outlets and is a far superior product.   I am very excited to have this available to me and I encourage you to go try a bottle (just leave one or three for me).  If you have a chance go up to their Port Williams location and take the time to talk to them about their operation.  You will be impressed by the level of pride and commitment to quality that they have.  You will also get some of the best gelato available.  If you don't want to take the trip to the valley then visit them at the market and you can get a sample of their milk (and gelato).