Orange Ricotta Poundcake with Strawberries

Teddy and I have made the video cooking lessons a weekly thing. Every Saturday morning, ten o'clock, we cook the same thing in our respective kitchens. He's twelve and has the attention span of a boy that age, which means some weeks are better than others, but he keeps showing up and that means something. Last week we made pasta from scratch — flour and eggs and a rolling pin and patience. His came out thick and irregular and he was very proud of it. As he should be.

It occurs to me that I'm passing something on through this strange medium, through a screen, from a farm to a suburb in Connecticut. Helen used to cook with Sarah in this kitchen on Sunday afternoons — I'd come in from the barn or the garden and there they'd be, the two of them working at the counter, talking as they went. I never thought to be part of it. That was their time. Now here I am, teaching my grandson to make pasta over a video call, and it turns out I had more to offer than I knew.

The asparagus is done for the year — that brief spring window closed — but the beans are coming in and I've been blanching and freezing in earnest. The chest freezer in the barn is getting full of labeled bags, the kind of preserved wealth that feels genuinely reassuring right now. Whatever happens out there in the world, there are green beans in the freezer.

Made a simple strawberry and rhubarb pie this week, the two fruits that overlap in that brief June window. Tart and sweet together, exactly right, the kind of pie Helen would have made in the early years of our marriage when we were still establishing our summer rituals. I ate a slice warm with no company and thought it was very good.

That strawberry and rhubarb pie got me thinking about the fruit itself — how brief the window is, how you have to meet it where it is or miss it entirely. The strawberries lingered a little longer than the rhubarb did, and I had a bowl of them sitting on the counter looking very red and very ready. This orange ricotta poundcake felt like the right answer: something sturdy enough to carry the fruit, bright enough to match it, and simple enough that I could make it on a weekday without ceremony. Helen would have approved. Teddy, I suspect, would ask for a second slice.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest (from about 1 large orange)
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with butter and dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess.
Macerate the strawberries. In a small bowl, toss the sliced strawberries with 2 tablespoons of the sugar and the lemon juice. Set aside to macerate while you make the cake.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the remaining sugar (about 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add ricotta and eggs. Beat in the ricotta until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla extract.
Fold in dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and fold gently with a spatula until just combined — do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is golden. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes.
Cool and serve. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Slice and serve warm or at room temperature, topped generously with the macerated strawberries and any accumulated juices.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange Ricotta Poundcake with Strawberries — The Fruit That Comes Right on Time