A friend gave me a copy of an old recipe for a creamy ricotta pie by Ada Boni. According to Wikipedia, Ada Boni was one of Italy’s most famous Italian chefs and food writer (1881-1973). Although I’ve made many versions of ricotta pies, this is my favorite.
Traditional ricotta pies are delicious but often different. Their taste and dense textures highlight the richness of ricotta cheese. This lighter ricotta pie is more delicate and creamier, balances between bolder ricotta and a lighter dairy cream pie.
These pictures of the finished pie were taken at a lady’s luncheon Nancy hosted.
Although the recipe uses limited ingredients, and is easy to assemble. I added a couple of conveniences and made assumptions not spelled out in the hand-written recipe.
As expected, the recipe includes “sfogliata”, homemade pastry crust. Although best, I’ve had good results making it with store bought pastry. Not specified but the recipe conveniently makes a 9’ pie.
Candied orange peel is one of the flavors. I’ve occasionally substituted with candied lemon, citron, and simply replaced candied orange by doubling the tablespoon of golden raisins, another ingredient.
The original recipe specifies cooking for about 20 minutes at 400° (assumed convection) until crust is tanned; then sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and baked for another 4 minutes. Even with the egg wash applied, pie might needs little more initial cooking time for store bought crust to properly brown.
Here’s my modified version.
Macerate with rum
Ricotta mixture
Thickening ingredients
Pastry and egg wash
Finish