When life gives you lemons … let them eat cake

My husband and I are coming up on our 30th anniversary in June. I’m astonished that I’ve been so lucky as to spend roughly three-fifths of my life with someone I never get tired of being with. We don’t run out of things to say, we make each other laugh and, by golly, I think he’s just about the cutest thing that ever walked the planet. When I look at him, I don’t see a middle-aged man. I still see the face that set my heart racing at 19 and every accumulated wrinkle and sag is unutterably precious to me.

So you think I’d feel unalloyed joy. But life’s joys are often so very alloyed. This milestone is a reminder that so much time has passed, and maybe we’ve got less to go than we’ve already had. On the other hand, my husband’s parents are about to celebrate their 60th anniversary, so maybe we’re only halfway there. But with bodies that are offering us grim hints of what the future has in store, well, it can sometimes seem like our most vibrant years are behind us.

Case in point: My back is killing me. I tweaked it in my late 30s. It wasn’t because I was skiing, doing archery on horseback or performing aerial gymnastics. I was making the bed. All of a sudden I was on the floor and couldn’t move. Eventually I righted myself, hobbled around for a couple weeks with a cane and then I was fine. Every so often the pain in my lower back flares up but it’s not anything that can’t be fixed with two or three weeks of heating pads, stretching and lots of walking.

This time, though, the pain came and didn’t go. I had to see a doctor for pharmacological intervention and physical therapy (although, somewhat uselessly, I can’t get a therapist’s appointment for two months). So I’ve taken to groaning, a lot — when sitting down or standing up, putting dishes in the dishwasher or bending forward ever so slightly to spit in the sink when brushing my teeth. Whatever action results in even the mildest twinge of discomfort, I emit a corresponding noise. It’s extremely satisfying and I’m sure it reduces my suffering by at least 8 percent, although it likely increases my husband’s irritation by about 32 percent, which in turn increases my satisfaction by 27 percent. That’s the secret to a long and happy marriage, at least for one of us.

Anyhow, it’s enough to make me want cake. I’ve often said in this column that I prefer pie or crisp to cake (usually right before offering a cake recipe) but this cake is different and it is better than all the other cakes in the world, past, present or future, in this or any other dimension or parallel universe. At least, that’s how I felt while eating a warm wedge of this lemon ricotta cake at a recent dinner party. Blimey! I shall always recall it as my Peak Cake Experience, though of course cake always tastes better when eaten with a tableful of friends. I’ll admit the taste could have been at least 17 percent atmospherically influenced.

I humbly begged for the recipe so that I could share it with you. The baker said it was easy — they always do, the scoundrels — but noted that there are a couple of important steps, such as draining the ricotta well and beating the ricotta with the butter and sugar for a full five minutes.

Five minutes is not long when you are having cocktails with friends but it is a long time when it’s just you in the kitchen with the bowl and the hand-mixer and you keep wanting to sample finger-fulls (which is safe to do because there are no raw eggs mixed in yet). I’ll spare you the trouble and tell you that butter, sugar and ricotta are delicious together. The other problem, at least for me, was that about halfway through the blending, I realized I was using a plastic mixing bowl, leaving me ample time to wonder how many microplastics I was releasing into the batter. Baking can be terrifying.

But before you get to the mixing, you must first drain the ricotta. To properly drain ricotta, line a mesh strainer or colander with cheesecloth, fill it with ricotta and let it drip for at least an hour or in the fridge overnight. The instructions I found online said you can speed the process by placing an object on top, though it doesn’t specify what. A pot? A bag of frozen peas? A cat? Naturally, I drained the ricotta improperly. I placed the ricotta in a very thin tea towel and squeezed the heck out of it, but that didn’t produce very much liquid and made my hands hurt. Also, it was extremely hard to get the cheese off the fabric. I ended up licking a lot of ricotta off the tea towel just to avoid wastage.

The recipe also allows a full 10-minute range on the cook time, from 45 to 55 minutes. I split the difference and baked the cake for 50 minutes and it turned out perfectly, just starting to brown on the sides and top. I let it cool in the pan for about 15 minutes and released the side of the springform pan. I covered the cake in a snowfall of powdered sugar (it’s so moist you don’t need to fuss with frosting) and cut a thick wedge. That’s where the magic is — eating the cake while it’s still warm and the fragrant lemon tickles your nose.

In my entirely subjective opinion, this is a better choice for Valentine’s Day than chocolate cake. And if your lemon ricotta cake is even 73 percent as good as the cake I had, then it will still be 100 percent delicious. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, remember that 42 percent of statistics are made up on the spot.

Lemon Ricotta Cake

¾ cup softened butter

1½ cups sugar

15 ounces drained ricotta

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 lemon, zested and juiced

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups flour

Powdered sugar for dusting

Drain the ricotta by lining a fine-mesh colander or strainer with cheesecloth, filling it with ricotta and allowing excess liquid to seep through for at least an hour or overnight, covered, in the fridge. Set oven to 350 degrees. Zest and juice one whole lemon and set aside. Cream together butter and sugar. Add ricotta and beat for five minutes. Add eggs, vanilla, zest and juice and mix. Stir in baking soda and salt. Mix in flour. Pour into buttered and floured 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. Cool for 15-20 minutes, then remove the sides of the pan. Dust generously with powdered sugar and serve while still warm.