Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake and a KitchenAid mixer giveaway
Today is our wedding anniversary, hence the cake.
It’s a light, lemony creation, which I’m serving up with a dollop of ricotta and maple-roasted rhubarb that was picked straight from my garden. Spring, long weekends, anniversaries – there is much to celebrate these May days and cake is just the ticket.
In addition to the recipe for Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake with Roasted Rhubarb, I’m sharing about the cookbook that has been living on my kitchen counter: Make It Easy: 120 Mix-and-Match Recipes to Cook from Scratch–with Smart Store-Bought Shortcuts When You Need Them. Oh, you’re going to love it.
And since we’re celebrating, our friends at KitchenAid want to give one lucky Simple Bites reader a brand new stand mixer! This post is packed, so let’s jump right into the fun.
A little over a year ago, I dined with my friend Stacie in a jam-packed bistro in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn and she told me about a cookbook she was writing.
As a working mother of two committed to wholesome family meals, she had figured out a solution to reclaim scratch cooking for busy, modern parents. I listened, nodding, as Stacie described how her book would give home cooks a laid-back and flexible approach to family meals by using healthy store-bought shortcuts for maximum flexibility and full control.
I instantly knew this book would be a success because Stacie was writing what she knew. For years, she’s been sharing her common sense approach to eating on her popular blog, One Hungry Mama and Cool Mom Eats, honing her skills for a book.
Fast forward to today, and Stacie’s beautiful cookbook Make It Easy is on bookstore shelves everywhere and on my kitchen counter. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy and I’ve been cooking and baking my way through the chapters for over a month now. It’s fantastic; no surprise there.
Before I continue, I want to say that I take my cookbook recommendations very, very seriously here on the blog. Sure, I have previous connections with Stacie, but I always set aside the personal stuff when I am testing a new book. It is always about the recipes. Always.
I had an experience last month with another cookbook, a hot new release that I had been eagerly anticipating for a while. Design-wise, it was a stunner. The photos were gorgeous; the layout very reader-friendly. But the recipes were seriously flawed. I made a total of seven recipes from start to finish, with mostly disastrous results. Expensive ingredients went in the garbage. Others were salvaged only because I applied practical cooking knowledge and overruled the recipes. It was a disappointment, and I scrapped the post I had planned. I didn’t want to waste another second of my time – or yours.
Sometimes that’s how it goes. Since writing my own, I am a fierce judge of cookbook content. It has to be so much more than a pretty package – yes, even though I’m a sucker for visuals and story.
Make It Easy cookbook
But let’s talk about a cookbook that works! Make It Easy is one of the most relatable cookbooks to come out in a while. (Perhaps the last one was The Homemade Kitchen, another favourite). It’s full of real talk from Stacie that is instantly applicable, because she’s been there, in the kitchen, day after day. She knows what it’s like to have kids with selective palates and stubborn routines.
The recipes are solid; very clear and well-written. They are simple enough for beginner cooks (hey, we all were beginners once) and yet exciting enough to spark the interest of the advanced home cook. Best of all, Stacie’s philosophy is served up without an ounce of guilt. How refreshing!
Here’s a handful of recipes from Make It Easy that we absolutely loved and will be adding to our family’s meal rotation.
- Everyday Waffles – Fast, fluffy and favoured by all.
- Yogourt Chia Breakfast Pudding – Brilliant combination.
- Sweet and Salty Granola Cereal – Great for weekday mornings (and snacking anytime)
- Country-Style Greek Salad – new fast picnic fare, bulked up with chickpeas.
- Curried Cauliflower and Red Lentil Soup – So delicious, and freezes well, too.
- Paprika Chicken – Quick, easy and yummy.
- One-Bowl Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake (pictured above) – Totally genius recipe.
For my Canadian readers, I should note that the Supermarket Guide in the back of the cookbook is mostly American brands. I recognized a few names that we can find up here, such as Eden Organics, Kashi and Nature’s Path, but for us this isn’t the most helpful part of the book.
I can see how this guide is invaluable for my US readers, however! Stacie is extremely thorough and explains her choices, rather than just rattling off a bunch of lists.
One-Bowl Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake with Roasted Rhubarb
If the photos haven’t yet convinced you, let me encourage you to add this recipe to your weekend baking. You could pair it with fruit salad for brunch with friends, wrap it up as snack cake for a picnic in the park, or dress it up with whipped cream as dessert for a lazy, al fresco dinner.
I’ve been sending it in my boy’s lunchboxes and carving myself slivers every afternoon at tea time. A loaf never lasts more than a day or two, so it’s a good thing the cake is simple to make. And yes, I took the suggested shortcut and used store-bought ricotta, although you could certainly make your own.
My rhubarb patch is thriving, and so I roasted up a tray with a drizzle of maple syrup to adorn the pound cake. Lemon and rhubarb are a classic spring pairing; don’t you agree?
One-Bowl Lemon Ricotta Pound Cake with Roasted Rhubarb
Ingredients
- 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for pan
- 1 cup raw cane sugar
- 1/2 cup ricotta cheese store-bought or homemade (plus more for serving, if desired)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest from about 1 lemon
- 4 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice from about 2 juicy lemons
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 4 large eggs ideally at room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pound young rhubarb stalks
- 3 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper; set aside.
- In a large bowl that works well with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the butter, sugar, ricotta, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt on low speed until just combined.
- Mix in the eggs, one at a time, making sure to fully incorporate each egg before adding the next.
- Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda to the same bowl. Use a wooden spoon or silicone spatula to mix until just incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top. Bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Meanwhile, cut the rhubarb into 2-inch lengths and toss with the maple syrup. Arrange on a rimmed baking sheet and roast alongside the cake for 10-15 minutes. Time will vary with the tenderness and freshness of the rhubarb. When the rhubarb has softened, remove pan and cool completely.
- Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing from the pan to finish cooling on a wire rack.
- To serve, slice cake and arrange on plates. Top with roasted rhubarb and a little extra ricotta. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- If you are using the cake later, wrap it tightly all around in plastic wrap and store on the counter for 2 to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Grand Prize Giveaway!
**This giveaway has ended.**
I’m delighted to partner with De Capo Press and KitchenAid USA for a very special giveaway.
One winner will receive a copy of Make It Easy by Stacie Billis and a KitchenAid® Artisan® Series Tilt-Head Stand Mixer! This beautiful mixer has 10 speeds, a 5-quart mixing bowl, and over 20 colours to pick from. Yes, the winner may pick any colour they choose and KitchenAid will ship the mixer to their front door.
Please note that this giveaway is exclusively for my lovely American readers, just this once! But don’t fret Canadian friends; I am cooking up another very special KitchenAid giveaway just for you shortly.
To Enter the giveaway: Leave a comment on this post and answer the following question: “What is a typical ‘make it easy’ dinner in your house?” Giveaway is open to United States residents only.
** This giveaway has ended. Congratulations to the winner Karen Rust of Cherry Valley, IL!! A BIG thank you to all who entered.**
KitchenAid has provided the stand mixer for this giveaway, but all opinions are my own and based on a decade of working with KitchenAid appliances in my kitchen.
Winner will be announced here on this post, as well as directly via email. Good luck to all!
Our make it easy go to dinner is roasted chicken breast olive oil, salt and pepper, frozen broccoli popped in the microwave, and rice put in the rice cooker.
Our go-to make it easy meals are (1) homemade quinoa burgers with a giant salad, and (2) crockpot BBQ chicken with southern coleslaw, pickles & a big ol’ salad.
My typical make it easy dinner is a roasted red pepper, basil and feta chicken thigh skillet. The sauce is so easy and I could drink it is so yummy. I serve it with salad and I use the extra sauce as a dressing 🙂
My make it easy dinner is usually breakfast for dinner! I like to make a batch of belgian waffles with a berry sauce, bacon and an egg scramble with peppers and onions.
My favorite easy go-to dinner is cheesy qeusodillas with homemade guacamole. Yum.
Scrambled eggs with seasoned fried potatoes and garlicky broccoli.
I love to bake, and a kitchen Aid mixer would be an exciting addition to our home cooking!
What we are having tonight: chicken breasts, baked potato (in the microwave!), and a veggie….! Thanks for the giveaway! I live in California…
Our quick and easy go to meal is Taco’s. We love spicy food at our house so we tend to go to them or burritos.
My make it easy is a roast in the crock pot, homemade fries and roasted veggies in the oven. And the cookbook sounds fantastic!
Mexican Chicken in the slow cooker! Chicken, cream cheese, corn, black beans & rotel. Dump it in, cook all day, serve over brown rice & quinoa from microwave packets. Everyone leaves happy!
Tacos! Leftover steak or chicken. Fresh made ground beef or turkey taco meat. Mash up homemade beans (any kind) or canned. Grilled veggies and artichoke hearts. Spiralized veggies of all kinds. Grilled sweet potatoes and black beans. Shrimp. Eggs and fried potatoes. Whatever happens to be in the refrigerator! Top with tomatoes, avocados, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Lettuce or cabbage slaw. I always have cilantro and limes in the refrigerator. Corn tortillas (fresh made or store bought). Be creative – Asian seasonings are as good as Mexican seasonings in a taco!
For my family I always have to make it easy so I can spend quality time with them! I use my slow cooker overnight, or freezer meals to throw in a one pot! We love lentils, chicken noodle soup and anything heartwarming +comforting!
I have many go to meals when time is short, but roast or chicken in the Dutch oven and homemade noodles over mashed potatoes seems to always work for my meat and potatoes farm guy. I would love the mixer and most of all the cook book, I am an avid cook book reader, always looking for new things to fix.
The pound cake today looks marvelous, it will be made soon and there is fresh rhubarb in the garden.
I stock our freezer with frozen vegetables and make huge batches of pesto and freeze individual portions in ice cube trays. This translates into a quick and easy pasta dinner with roasted vegetables ready in 20 minutes!
I always have fresh tomatoes ripening on my counter to make a quick sauce; olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and chopped tomatoes. Some angel hair pasta and a little peccorino. Served with a green salad. I’ve had my Kitchen Aid mixer for 31 years. It is just at this point started to show signs of age… But it has lasted longer than my marriage! I still use it a few times week.
Our make it easy dinner is potatoes, asparagus (or another good roasting veggie) and salmon! I can make it all in a single sheet pan and just check on it a couple of times. This book looks awesome, and I’ve been wanting to do more baking, so I’d love to be considered for a mixer.
My easy meal is to put chx thighs in the bottom of a 9x 13 pan and add a bag of frozen haricot beans, bite size potatoes, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup olive oil and a packet of dry Italian dressing (or my own blend). Bake at 350 for an hour.
Thank you for the post reviewing Whole Bowls. I don’t buy many books but I jumped on this one and it is Beautiful! Made the dahl, cauliflower hazelnut pilaf, and cucumber raita for supper last night. So. Good. Thanks also for the pound cake and rhubarb recipe–I love rhubarb! My grandmother would stew it and serve as a jam at each meal in the spring.
Our make it easy dinner is panko/parmesan crusted pollock with baked sweet potatoes and coleslaw. It is not only easy and delicious, but healthy too! PS: Love the roasted rhubarb idea–just picked some from our patch and was wondering what to do with it! I’ll try it with the lemon pound cake–thanks!
Our easy go to meal is a sweet potato baked with added condiments ranging from chick peas, cheese, guacamole, sour cream and any toppings of your choice!
My easy to go meal is Sausage Wraps – Grill Sausage on electric grill, wrap it in bread, spread with mustard, grab some chips and GO………………..
Our quick meal is chicken breasts dipped in milk and then rolled in wheat germ, oregano And Parmesan cheese then baked in the oven. We round out the meal with frozen Lima beans and a green salad.
Our easy dinner is pasta with meat sauce!
roasted or grilled veggies and sausage.
Our newest easy dinner had been chicken thighs thrown into a crockpot with a jar of salsa dumped on top, cooked on high for a few hours. So tender!
And Aimee, I am really enjoying Brown Eggs and Jam Jars. Love the muffins.
My favorite easy meal night dinner is cubed chicken breast tossed with brown sugar, chipotle chile in adobo sauce, cilantro, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Broiled for ten minutes. Served with rice, corn, and a yummy sour cream sauce. Courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen. Perfect mix of spice and sweet.
A typical make it easy dinner in my house is a local Hawaii favorite in many households here. It’s called Shoyu Chicken. Simply, chicken thighs in a pot, boil until all the scum comes out. Drain water. Mix together low sodium soy sauce, mirin (or sugar), some smashed garlic cloves and an inch of ginger cut into thin medallions. Pour sauce over the chicken and boil until just falling off the bone. Served over rice of course!
My go to. Easy Meal is turos Tészta. (farmers cheese noodles)
Our make it easy dinner is homemade pizza and a salad.
First off, Aimee, THANK YOU for this post. I’m humbled… and only you could find a way to make my favorite cake even better. That rhubarb looks perfect! Also, how great are all these easy meal ideas. Love it. Such inspiration!
One of my favorite easy meals is baked beans and franks with some pineapple added for a bit of sweetness. Serve with a side salad and that’s it!
Also, thanks for the lemon pound cake and rhubarb recipe…what a delicious combination! I like anything lemon, and I learned to enjoy rhubarb from an early age because my grandmother would cook it up in cobblers, pies or just plain stewed…love the stuff…hard to find in the grocers, though…but worth the search!
I keep simple ingredients on hand to make an easy meal of chicken thighs, sliced onion, salt & pepper and cream of mushroom soup (slightly diluted with milk). Pour over thighs, bake in 350 oven for about 60 mins. and serve with rice and salad on the side.
Roast chicken and vegetables!
Or green stir-fry- a mix of every green vegetable we can find over rice.
🙂
Kitchen-Aid mixers are so lovely! Thank you!
I place 6 oz salted and peppered salmon filets in parchment or aluminum foil, add some thinly sliced lemon rounds, some herbs (dill for sure!), a glug of white wine, some olive oil, seal the packets and roast at 400 for 12 minutes. Add a simple tossed salad (or rice, or steamed veggies) and voila!
My go to easy dinner is cooking leftovers! I love taking whatever veggies I have and mixing it with eggs or potatoes. I fry or heat up any leftover meat I have and make a dinner bowl.
My typical “make it easy” recipe is grilled chicken. I’m the master of my grill, so everything I make turns out tasty.
Enchiladas with either leftover shredded chicken, or pinto/black beans for a vegetarian option.
The easiest and quickest meal for my family is spaghetti w/ meat sauce . Along with a bag of salad mix. Relatively healthy and under an hour to prepare
With no-knead bread dough and fresh mozzarella always in the fridge, pizza is quick to make with whatever else we may have on hand. If it’s too hot to cook inside, we grill it. A current favorite is garlic and mushroom with herbs sprinkled both under and on top of the cheese. Crispy on the bottom and gooey on top – yum! The lemon pound cake with roasted rhubarb sounds delicious – thanks for sharing the recipe. I can’t wait to make it!
I’ll make it easy by combining the vegetables that I have in hand and sautéing them with either cooked brown rice or cooked whole grain pasta. I’ll whip up a quick sauce with soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, and sesame oil to give it some flavor.
There are two such meals at our house the spring summer one is a salad with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocado if on hand, marinaded artichokes, cucumber and spicy sautéed shrimp with bleu cheese dressing. The autumn winter is crock pot pork stew with sweet potatoes, lots of carrots onions and garlic, parsnips, & apples. I use a combination of hard cider and stock to cook it in. Thank you for the opportunity to win.
Some nights we would starve to death if it wasn’t for scrambled eggs and toast!
Tacos are definitely toward the top of my list.
My go to easy meal is stovetop grilled chicken tenderloins, with roasted broccoli with lemon and parmesan. Second up is turkey chili!
Our go to is a formula that I pulled off of Apartment Therapy years back: pasta+cheese+green+protein. My favorite iteration of this is farfalle+feta+broccoli+andouille!
Our easy make dinner would be anything on the BBQ!! Grilled meats and roasted veggies! Easy clean up too!
Prepping as many things as possible on the weekend helps. We love marinated chicken with grilled veggies.
My favorite make it easy dinners are definitely “sheet pan dinners”! Everything on a sheet pan and roasted in a hot oven. So easy and tasty!
One of my easy meals is oven pancakes; a favorite of mine when I was little, I still enjoy them, and so do my kids! Another standby is chicken quesadillas. I try to always keep the ingredients on hand in the freezer; cooked chicken(portioned up when I roast a chicken), rice (I portion leftover rice and freeze), black beans (I batch cook and freeze…), tortillas (stocked in the freezer like everything else) some green chiles, spices and salsa from the pantry, and sour cream and cheese from the fridge!
I enjoy your blog, and it would be fun to win the game!
Steak and salad is an easy and quick staple!