Ricotta Cranberry Custard

Hello! For my final blog post, I have chosen to make "Ricotta Cranberry Custard" from my book, Petite Sweets.

This recipe was chosen by my dad and older brother, Austin. I think my brother chose this because the picture from the book looks like cheesecake, and he loves cheesecake. But let me tell you, it's definitely not cheesecake. But we'll get to that later.

Ricotta Cranberry Custard from Petite Sweets (Ojakangas 98)

To start, I gathered the necessary ingredients: 

Custard: 

• 12 ounces (1½ 8-ounce packages) cream cheese
• ¾ cup ricotta cheese
• 2 large eggs
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ cup sugar 
• ½ cup heavy cream

Sauce: 

• 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar

First I preheated the oven to 250°F. Then I added the cream cheese to the electric mixer. 

But that's when I realized I only had one stick of cream cheese, instead of two, to complete the one AND one half ounces of cream cheese needed. 

Now that my whole recipe was off due to lack of one ingredient, I had to problem solve. I really wanted to get this done that day because the rest of the week I would be busy and I didn't want to put my mom in a bad mood by making her go all the way to the store just for one stick of cream cheese so, I did the only thing I could do. I adjusted the whole recipe. 

Since I only had 8 ounces of cream cheese instead of 12, I knew 8 divided by 12 was 2/3. That meant I would have to multiply my whole recipe by 2/3. 

So, I did. Except the eggs, which I just left at 2. 

Now that I was back on track, I started adding my ingredients to the electric mixer again; ricotta, eggs (one at a time), vanilla, sugar, and cream and mixed until combined (Ojakangas 99).

Once everything was smooth, I spooned the batter into two ramekins. After they were evenly divided among the two, I placed each one into a large, transparent baking dish. Then I poured "enough hot water into the baking [dish] around the ramekins to reach about halfway up the sides" (Ojakangas 99).

Carefully, I placed each baking dish with the ramekin inside into the oven and set it for 40 minutes. When 40 minutes had passed, I took them both out of the oven. "The top should not have changed color at all" (Ojakangas 99) and since it didn't, I knew I was on my way to making a successful dessert.

After they had cooled slightly, I wrapped both of the ramekins with saran wrap and placed them in the fridge, where they would stay and chill for about three hours. 

In the meantime, I started working on the sauce. Though, that didn't take long either. 

But I'm 90% sure I messed up the sauce too. My mom had gotten me a cranberry sauce can where all I had to do was heat it up and mix it around, but I didn't realize that so I put that in a pot and heated it up and mixed it around, as well as adding one cup of water and one cup of sugar. It came out fine though so nothing too problematic. 

So I wrapped that up like I did with the ramekins and placed it in the fridge where it would chill for three hours as well. 

When everything had chilled for three hours, I took it out of the fridge. 

And then I scooped the cranberries on top of the custard (I probably shouldn't have added so much cranberry to the first one).

What I learned from this experience is that custard ≠ cheesecake. I went into that first bite thinking something solid, but my spoon went through it like goo. Keep in mind that I hadn't really read the title of this recipe, I just saw the picture and went "ooh la la" and wanted to make it. I know what custard is... now. 

If I were to do this again, I'd probably try to find something better to do in those three hours where all I did was wait. Also, I would've made sure I had all my ingredients ahead of time.

I would recommend making this dessert if you have a lot of free time and like custard. Me? I don't like it so much. 

Have you ever tried a food that you thought would taste totally different based on it's looks? 

Thanks for reading!

Ojakangas, Beatrice, and Roger LePage. Petite Sweets: Bite-Size Desserts to Satisfy Every Sweet Tooth. Portland, Me.: Sellers, 2009. Print.