Berry and Ricotta Cake

My family has a serious addiction when it comes to berries. Luckily, my dad has a relatively healthy raspberry patch that saves us a bit of money but we end a spending a small fortune on strawberries and blackberries every week. During the height of berry season, we can't resist the cheap prices and buy the by the tonne. 

Despite our frighteningly high consumption rate, we still manage to have a huge amount of berries that are threatening to become overripe any day. Hence, I go trawling the internet for hours on end to find any recipes to tempt our collective sweet tooth.

This cake recipe is adapted from http://www.thewrightrecipes.com/sweets/a-sweet-start-for-mothers-day. It comes out as an unusual texture, incredibly dense - not at all a fluffy cake - almost like a dense bread which works fantastically nonetheless. Beautiful with a cup of tea after dinner.

Berry and Ricotta Cake

Ingredients

1 ½ cups plain flour
1 ½  tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp mixed spice
3 large eggs
½ cup raw sugar
¾ cup ricotta
¼ cup melted unsalted butter
¼ milk
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla paste (a generous splash of extract also works)
Flaked almonds
Your choice of berries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C fan forced and grease a 9-inch shallow cake or tart pan (preferably with lift out bottom).

2. Mix together flour, baking soda, salt and mixed spice in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, sugar, ricotta, melted butter, milk, honey and vanilla. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients to combine and pour into greased tin.

3. Sprinkle your favourite berries on top (blackberries, blueberries or raspberries work best) and top with flaked almonds.

4. Bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy hot or cooled.