Ricotta  has bountiful nutrition at a very low calorie-cost. Even if you are not trying to lose weight, ricotta provides benefits that make it a wise investment in your daily meal planning

Ricotta  is a  byproduct ,  that literally means “recooked” in Italian. It is made from recooking the whey after it has been separated from the curds.

A high-calcium, high-protein, low-carbohydrate, low-fat, low-sodium nutrition, that is ricotta!


One cup part-skim ricotta, at 339 calories, has 28.02 g protein, compared to regular cottage cheese’s 23.35 g. 


One cup fat-free ricotta has only 200 cal per cup, 0 g fat and a whopping 40 g protein. 


Ricotta’s remarkable calcium content, at 669 mg per cup outranks cottage cheese’s 174 mg and even low fat yogurt’s 448 mg. 


Ricotta has twice as much selenium, one-third more potassium and yet only one-eighth the sugar of cottage cheese. 


It also has 20 percent of the recommended daily allowance for zinc and vitamin A, and 10 percent for magnesium and vitamin B-12.

Preparation: Serves 6/8

Ingredients:
For the pastry

- 300 gr. flour
- 100 gr. of butter
- 50 gr. fresh  light cream 
- 2 eggs (if they are large 1 red and 1 whole egg) 
- 100 grams of  brown sugar
- A pinch of salt
- Grated rind of one lemon untreated

For the filling

- 500 gr. sheep ricotta,  if possible! 
- 150 gr. of  brown sugar
- 140 gr. of  cherries
- 120 gr.  dark chocolate 

Preparation:

Prepare the stuffing a few hours before use by mixing the ricotta with the sugar and candies, and combining the chocolate cut in small pieces. Mix well and leave in the fridge until use.

Mix quickly the flour with the softened butter,eggs, fresh cream, sugar, salt and lemon zest.

After getting a nice smooth ball of dough flour the surface lightly, wrap with plastic wrap and let rest in refrigerator for half an hour.

At this point we will divide the dough in two:  half will serve to make the base, the other half to make the cylinders of dough for the top.

Butter the mold and roll out the dough. Make sure the dough stays out of the border of the mold.

Put the stuffing well in the center  of the mold and start leveling it; put the cylinders of dough on top and close the dough al around the  stuffing.Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before you unmold the tart.

Ingredients

- 250 gr of flour
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
- A pinch of salt
- 12 grams of baking powder
- 80 g extra vergin olive oil
- 250 ml milk
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 tablespoon soluble barley 
- Brown sugar
- Pine nuts

Preparation: 
Preheat the oven at 170°
Sift the flour one time, with the icing sugar, salt and yeast. In another bowl, melt the barley with milk,  mix well and dissolve any lumps and then add the egg. Add the liquid mixture to the flour, stir well … the dough should be smooth. Then add the olive oil. Continue stirring, add a little brown sugar in the dough as well as pine nuts and transfer into the mold.
Bake for around 50/55minutes.

IMPORTANT ADVICE AND INFO


The ventilated oven is not good for baking cakes, the oven should be warm but not ventilated otherwise it  dries quickly and does not cook inside
The heat must come primarily from the bottom and the cake should rest on the first track of the oven, detached from the base but not too much.
Remember to put the cake inside when the oven has reached the temperature required by the recipe

The difference between baking muffins and baking cakes is that cakes are cooked for a longer period of time on a lower temperature. Muffins you should usually wind up baking at 180° for about 25-30 min, and cakes or loafs are usually 170° for about an hour. This can be done using the same batter recipe.

If you try to bake a cake or loaf at a muffin temperature you can wind up getting crispy or even burned outsides, and raw sticky middles. The same principle applies here for larger muffins. Cook a bit longer on a lower temperature and they should come out well.