Ingredients for an approximately 24 cm diameter springform cake tin: 1 jar La Fragolina300 g fresh sheep’s milk ricotta200 g strawberries70 g icing sugar2 egg white200 g Cantucci biscuits biscuits100 ml Zanzarato
Use a sharp knife to coarsely chop the Cantucci biscuits; then pour the Zanzarato over them, very slowly, and mix so that it is absorbed. Distribute this mixture in the bottom of the cake tin and put it in the fridge. In the meanwhile, beat the egg whites with half of the icing sugar and the lemon juice. Delicately wash and dry the strawberries, remove the green crowns and the stalks, and then blend them (setting a few aside to decorate the cake at the end). Pass the ricotta through a sieve into a bowl, add the remaining icing sugar and the blended strawberries, stir well and then add the beaten egg whites, one spoonful at a time, stirring them in delicately with a spoon until the mixture is light and fluffy like a mousse. Take the cake tin out of the fridge and pour the mousse on top of the base. Spread it out well with the back of a spoon and decorate with the strawberries that you set aside previously, sliced thinly or according to your immagination. Put the cake in the fridge for at least 2 hours and then serve, with a spoonful of Fragolina drizzled on top of each slice.
This recipe has two particularly seasonal ingredients. The strawberry is a typical fruit of May and June, which belongs to the Rosaceae family. Its intense red colour expresses a strong personality and it is rich in Vitamin C and a particular type of polyphenol, flavonoids, which have known antioxidants properties. It’s important that strawberries are picked when fully ripe, to heighten their colour, flavour and fragrance. Ricotta is a fresh, low-fat cheese, rich in noble proteins, calcium and mineral salts. It’s made with the whey recovered during the process of making pecorino cheese – nothing gets thrown away! The whey is heated once more – hence the name “ri-cotta”, which literally means re-cooked – until the proteins thicken forming the typical white, grainy consistency. Ricotta is excellent eaten fresh, as it is; it’s also very useful for many recipes, both sweet and savoury, from sauces to the fillings used in various typical desserts – for example, the cooks at the Fattoria use it, instead of mascarpone, to make Tiramisù.