Coffee-laced Ricotta (Ricotta al Caffe)

In the middle of a sweltering Tuscan summer, with no working oven and a two-year-old requesting attention, I had to come up with some kind of simple dessert to end a meal for some friends staying over. I found a lovely little recipe in Elizabeth David’s Italian Food for slightly sweet ricotta with a splash of rum and a spoonful of fine coffee grounds stirred through it. She also suggests serving it with some fresh cream and thin wafer biscuits (I quite like lingua di gatto, or cat’s tongue biscuits for this). Together with the booziness from the rum and the uplifting hit of caffeine, it’s rather like a lazy idea for a tiramisu. Served well chilled in little glasses, it is a refreshing, elegant and surprisingly light way to end a meal.

I’ve made it many times since and it has morphed a little from the original. I prefer it with a shot of espresso rather than the coffee grounds. It’s a subtler coffee flavour and doesn’t seem to make your head spin as the straight coffee grounds do. Sometimes I like to fold the whipped cream directly into the ricotta, which makes it light as a cloud. And, when I want to make it a little more substantial to serve as a dessert, I crumble biscuits into the glasses and layer them with the ricotta, whipped cream and chocolate.