End of Summer: Ricotta Cheesecake with Fresh Raspberries

I know the summer is far behind us and ended a while ago but I found this post hiding in my drafts and I'll admit it, I am a procrastinator...please forgive me. I made this with a dinner one night because I needed a lighter dessert and was intrigued. I am still undecided on this dessert but thought there was no harm in posting it for anyone else to give it a try. There was something with the texture that rubbed me the wrong way. I'm assuming it was the ricotta, which apparently is a common way to make cheesecake in Italy...so I hear. I enjoyed the flavors of this cheesecake and the fresh raspberries were refreshing but for me personally, I think ricotta is better left between layers of pasta, meat and sauce.

I do have a cheese danish recipe that is on my "to-bake" list that calls for ricotta but I feel it may work a lot better in something like that...this cheesecake just didn't have that creamy smooth heavenly texture that I love so much. It was worth a shot and considering the good reviews it had on the foodnetwork.com, I think it was just a personal preference and that other people may actually enjoy this, so here it is...

Ricotta Cheesecake with Fresh Raspberries
From foodnetwork.com

Ingredients:

Cooking spray
1 (15-ounce) container part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream
4 ounces Neufchatel cheese, or reduced fat cream cheese, softened
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup all-fruit seedless raspberry jam
1 tablespoon orange liqueur or water
2 (6-ounce) containers fresh raspberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Coat a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray. Place ricotta in a food processor and process until smooth and creamy. Add sour cream, Neufchatel, eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla, orange zest and salt. Process until well blended. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the center is just set, 50 to 55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and then cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

In a small saucepan, bring the jam and liqueur or water to a boil, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove sides of pan. Brush the tart with the jam mixture and top with raspberries, flat-side down.

Speaking of undecided...I just finished this book a couple weeks ago (I love to read. I know. How nerdy!) I can't decide how I feel about this book. I'm a sucker for romantic comedy kind of books ( LOVE Sue Margolis, Jen Lancaster and Candace Bushnell). This on the other hand was written by a man. It had it's quirky moments and I did appreciate how the ending was unpredictable and rather twisted. Yet, this book was easy to put down. Most of the time I read a book in 2 days, 3 days at the most because I'm so unbelieveably impatient and HAVE to know what happens. That didn't happen with this book. I felt maybe it was slow and hard to relate to....maybe that is just me. Has anyone else read it?

(Now I'm in the Halloween mood and reading "Wicked" and then "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" :))