Chocolate Chip Ricotta Pie

January 2021. New year. The index cards are in a tin on my kitchen counter in Birmingham, next to the composition notebook and the cast iron skillet and the ceramic mixing bowls. These are the objects that trace my cooking life: each one came from a specific place and person and moment. The index cards are the beginning of everything.

I have been reading them. All of them, slowly, over the past two weeks. There are forty-seven cards. Some are recipes I know completely, the fried chicken and the banana pudding and the collard greens and the mac and cheese. Some are things I have made with her but not alone, variations and seasonal things I have not gotten to yet. Some are her mother recipes that she received as I received hers, by watching and by love.

I am going to cook every card. This is not a resolution exactly. It is a project, a long one, a years-long one. I am going to make every recipe on every card and write about it and post it on the blog. What the recipe is. Where it comes from. What it means. What it taught me to do. The blog has always been about food and love and where those things overlap and this is the center of that overlap: forty-seven index cards, the handwriting of two women, the knowledge of a family that chose me.

I made the first one this week: her mother sweet corn pudding, which is different from the corn pudding I have made before, richer, with a little cream cheese and hot sauce. I made it on Sunday morning and ate it for lunch and thought: forty-seven cards. I have time. I have a kitchen. I have everything I need.

The corn pudding taught me something I already knew but needed reminding: the simplest recipes carry the most weight. So when I flipped to the next card in the stack — this Chocolate Chip Ricotta Pie, written in her mother’s tighter, older cursive — I knew I wasn’t waiting on it. There’s something about ricotta that reminds me of cream cheese, of that richness she always knew how to coax out of a short list of ingredients, and the chocolate chips feel like a small private joy tucked into the middle of an otherwise quiet recipe. Card two. Forty-five to go.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes + cooling | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade)
2 cups whole-milk ricotta cheese
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 350°F. Fit the pie crust into a 9-inch pie dish and crimp the edges. Set aside on a rimmed baking sheet.
Make the filling. In a large bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, and salt until smooth and fully combined, about 2 minutes.
Fold in the chocolate. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the chocolate chips, then fold the remaining chips into the ricotta mixture until evenly distributed.
Fill and top. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips evenly over the top.
Bake. Bake on the middle rack for 48 to 52 minutes, until the center is just set and no longer jiggles when you nudge the pan. The top should be lightly golden.
Cool completely. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for at least 1 hour before slicing. The filling will firm up as it rests. Dust generously with powdered sugar before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Chip Ricotta Pie — Another Card from the Tin, Another Sunday Well Spent