What’s your preference, savoury or sweet? OR are you one of those creative people that is satisfied with a meal that has a mixture of savoury and sweet components like, dare I say it , pineapple on pizza. Personally I consider having pineapple on pizza sacrilege and that’s because I find that the flavours of pineapple and pizza much better on their own best whereas together they’re a weird combination. However there are some people that like the combination and that’s completely fair as it’s all down to personal preference. I mentioned pineapple on pizza as at the moment that is the only meal I can think of that combines sweet and savoury.
Essentially when it comes to food I don’t mind eating a combination of sweet and savoury, it just has to have a good balance to it that’s not overly sweet or salty. There are certain foods which I already label either sweet or savoury for example rice will always be categorised for me as savoury dish as I don’t find rice pudding (which I consider the sweet component of rice ) to be at all appealing, and cream will always be accompanied with a sweet dish as there is nothing better than having a spoon full of cream on a piece of cake. Again everyone has a personal preference. Each food has a certain flavour which accompanies the dish to make it sweet or savoury. I am reading this book at the moment called The Flavour Thesaurus. In this book the author Niki Segnit writes about flavours. For those who are creative cooks and would love to read about certain pairings of food, recipes, or even ideas on meals this is the book for you. Each pairing that I read made me want to go to the kitchen and start creating, as they were so strange that I wanted to try it for myself to see if Niki was telling the truth. In this book I came across one chapter (section) Cheese. In my opinion cheese is already one of the best savoury foods out there! Hard, soft, fried, creamy, mild, strong, smelly the flavours and types of cheese are so vast that you have endless options. I still don’t think I have tried all the cheeses that are here in this world. What I realized in this chapter that cheese, especially soft cheese has a very neutral flavour and you can pair it with anything sweet and savoury. In this book it talks about certain pairings of the cheese mainly with fruit or vegetables but what I was thinking was the pairing of cheese when it comes to baking?
Baking is one of my favourite pass times. You can do so much when it comes to baking but it has to be precise. Normally the best type of cheese to use when baking is any soft cheese such as cream cheese or ricotta. My all time favourite cake is a cheesecake! No matter what flavour, I just love the creamy consistency and the crunch of the biscuit. YUM! Recently I had the urge to bake and I was craving some cheesecake unfortunately though we didn’t have cream cheese. Although what we did have in the fridge was some Ricotta. Ricotta is soft cheese which is creamy in texture and has a slight, sweet flavour. In our house we normally use ricotta as a savoury component to make some spinach ricotta filling for our lasagna but this time I wanted to make something sweet with the ricotta. During my usual scroll through Pinterest I found a recipe which seemed pretty simple and quite delicious, it was a Raspberry Ricotta Cake. The recipe is from the blog Bake Play Smile and I can honestly say this is the best cake I have ever made! With the sharp flavour of the raspberries and the creamy texture of the ricotta it turned out to be a very moist cake. I would eat two slices everyday if I could but then the cake will be finished sooner than expected and I don't want that. The only thing I tweaked with the Raspberry Ricotta Cake recipe is by adding a bit of lemon zest. Lemon and Raspberries I find make the perfect pairing, and I find that the hint of lemon brings a bit of fresh kick to the cake. If your interested to look at the recipe click Raspberry Ricotta Cake , its super simple and extremely delicious!
