Marbled ricotta cake

Reading Rachel Cooke's column in the Observer Food Monthly, I kept nodding my head in agreement. She writes about the food in lockdown, that in a world where we have been deprived of so much that we love - friends, art, restaurants - every meal is a treat. In such times, pleasure really is vital. And a cake is definitely one of life's pleasures.

Last Sunday many people celebrated the Father's Day, and I wanted to bake something special to treat my boys and their Dad.
I was mixing the cake batter and thinking of my late Dad. How I wish he lived long enough to meet my children. He's being gone these last twenty years. I lived with my parents until I was in my mid-twenties. I often baked then, but my cakes were quite basic. We didn't have the same variety of ingredients as you can get now in Russia. I often think how much I would have enjoyed cooking a good meal for him now.

Ricotta cake is one of the cakes I bake quite often, with slightly different variations. The original recipe was given to me by my husband's aunt Giuseppina. Her recipe, adapted for the competition sponsored by Grana Padano, helped me win the first prize a few years ago.
I play around with different added ingredients, keeping the main ratio of eggs/sugar/ricotta/flour and butter the same.
Ricotta cake is very tasty as it is, but I fancied slightly jazzing it up for the occasion, plus I wanted to see if it would work as a marbled cake. It worked well. The cake barely lasted two days.

Marbled ricotta cake
Ingredients:
3 medium eggs
160g caster sugar
200g ricotta
300g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
100g butter, melted
1tsp vanilla essence
4tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp chocolate spread + 1 heaped tsp of cocoa powder
2tbsp Biscoff spread (optional)
+
icing sugar and freshly squeezed orange juice for the icing

Beat the eggs with the ricotta and sugar, sift in the flour and baking powder and mix well. Melt the butter, let it cool slightly and add to the batter together with the orange juice and vanilla.
Divide the cake batter into two bowls. Add 2tbsp of chocolate spread and cocoa powder to one, and 2tbsp of Biscoff spread to the other one.
The cake batter is rather thick. Spoon it into the oiled bundt tin, alternating spoonfuls of different batter.
Place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for about 45+ minutes. Check if the wooden toothpick comes clean, then the cake is ready.

You can simply dust it with the icing sugar, or make a runny icing with icing sugar and orange juice.

Eat warm or cold, with tea or coffee.