Snowflake Cake

17/11/2023

The snowflake cake is a typical Neapolitan pastry dessert, famous for its soft and moist consistency that indeed resembles a snowflake. It is made with a particularly soft dough enriched with a sweet ricotta-based cream. Here’s how to prepare it:

Ingredients

500 g fresh ricotta
300 g sugar
300 g 00 flour
100 g chocolate chips
100 g lard (you can also substitute it with butter)
3 eggs
16 g baking powder
Grated zest of 1 lemon
A pinch of salt
Powdered sugar for decorating

For the soak:

100 ml milk
1 tablespoon sugar
A pinch of vanilla powder or vanilla extract

Preparation

Start by working the ricotta with the sugar in a bowl until you obtain a homogeneous mixture.
Add the eggs one at a time, continuing to mix.
Incorporate the softened lard (or butter if you prefer) and the grated lemon zest.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and a pinch of salt, and gently fold it into the ricotta and egg mixture.
Once you have a smooth dough, add the chocolate chips and mix to distribute them evenly.
Pour the mixture into a previously buttered and floured pan (or lined with parchment paper), and bake at 180 °C for about 40-50 minutes. Before removing from the oven, check the doneness with a toothpick.
While the cake is baking, prepare the soak by heating the milk with the sugar and vanilla until the sugar has dissolved.
Once removed from the oven, let the cake cool slightly then drizzle it with the prepared soak, distributing it evenly over the surface.
Let the cake rest to absorb the soak well and enhance its softness.
Before serving, dust with powdered sugar to give the “snowflake” effect.

Curiosities

The snowflake cake owes its particular consistency to the presence of ricotta in the dough, which makes it incredibly moist and delicately flavored. It is important that the ricotta is well drained so the dough does not turn out too wet. Furthermore, in Neapolitan pastry shops it is often enriched with custard or small amounts of whipped cream to make it even more indulgent.