Italian Ricotta Pie-Gluten Free Version

My Aunt Nora was the baker in the family. She was always whipping up a cake or a new cookie recipe. She made beautiful trays of cookies for special occasions, baking for days. When she passed, I found her “recipe book”, a small notepad where she handwrote all of her recipes, half in English and half in Italian. I look through the book and try to decipher not only the handwriting, but also which recipe it is. Her description of the recipe would be something like "Biscotti di Maria" (Maria's cookie) or "Biscotti bianco con le noce" (white cookie with nuts)

At Easter time, she would always bake sweet yeast bread with confectioner sugar icing and ricotta pie. The ricotta pie was lighter than cheesecake and was crustless.  She would bake it in either an 11x13 or a round glass pyrex baking dish, greased and “dusted” with crushed graham crackers. But, as best as I can remember, all the filling ingredients were gluten free!  This would be a perfect gluten free dessert. I looked for the ricotta pie recipe in her recipe book but it wasn’t there.  Then it occurred to me, it was so simple, she had the recipe memorized no need to write it down!   I remember watching her make it when I was a child, and tasting the batter before it was cooked, it was so good! I remember a whole dozen eggs (yes 12!) a large container of Ricotta cheese, sugar, a shot glass of whiskey, grated chocolate, and grated citron. Simple. The baking dishes were greased with butter, then finely crushed graham crackers were spread around the sides and bottom, but only enough that would stick, similar to dusting a pan with flour. This dusting was so light that I knew I could eliminate it and the cake would be fine.  I decided to use vanilla instead of the whiskey, and as far as looking for citron, (I used to pick it out anyway), I used orange zest instead. It was as good as I remember, and it was a huge hit with the family! The texture is lighter than a traditional cheesecake and the orange zest and chocolate perfectly complement each other! This is a great, simple gluten free dessert that everyone will love.

Italian Ricotta Pie  
Printable Recipe

12 eggs
3 lbs whole milk ricotta
2 cups sugar
2 tsps vanilla
2 tsps orange zest
1/2 cup grated milk chocolate

Beat the eggs in a large bowl with a mixer, add the ricotta, sugar, vanilla and orange zest, beat until smooth. Stir in the chocolate. Pour into a greased 11x13 glass baking dish (or 2 round ones) and bake at 350 degrees for  1 hour.  Cool.