Italian Christmas Cookie Cake
There are so many festivities that the holidays bring and baking is one of them! Christmas cookies, well cookies in general, are very loved by Canadian Italians, American Italians or Italian Italians (yes all three aren’t the same). With that being said, the recipes have been adapted over the generations vary from locations and culture. I will not claim anything about this recipe authentic, but I will claim it to be absolutely outstanding! This recipe is made with ingredients inspired from the Italian Christmas cookie or ricotta cookie flavors. Creating a cake out of those flavors makes this a festive cake to bring around the holidays, especially if you are looking for something different than the typical cookie but still want to be festive.
Ingredients:
1 (15.25 oz.) box vanilla cake mix
1 (15 oz.) container ricotta cheese
¾ cup heavy cream for cake
1 ½ cups or so of heavy cream for icing
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
4 cups powdered sugar
Sprinkles
Instructions:
Heat oven to 325º F. Spray a cake pan with baking spray.
Beat together cake mix, ricotta, ¾ cup of cream, oil, and eggs. Beat until smooth.
Pour into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (depends on the type of pan you use, at least 35 minutes). I make mine in a bundt pan and it takes about 50-55 minutes. Cool completely before removing from pan.
For the icing: In a small bowl, whisk together 1 cup heavy cream, powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add more cream if needed until it is creamy, thick but thin enough to pour. Drizzle over cake, add sprinkles. Allow icing to set before slicing and serving.
We’d love to see your finished product! Post your picture on Instagram, tag us @danimade.kitchen and hashtag it #danimade
Get yourself this amazing vanilla bean paste if you don’t have it already! I promise it is so much better than vanilla extract, you’ll never go back. Click the picture below to shop via Sur La Table.
