Eat Well, Live Happy: Mama DeSelm's Chocolate Cake with Ricotta Filling

For my 21st Birthday (years ago) my friend Tara had a surprise birthday party for me at her parent's house. On top of the surprise and gathering together all of my family and friends, she made a delicious chocolate cake with ricotta filling. I've had the recipe for many years and never got around to making it myself, until today. I had a few ideas in mind for a Mother's Day dessert, and luckily remembered that I still hadn't made this cake yet, so I finally gave it a try.

I don't want to give away Tara's family's recipe completely, so I omitted sharing their grandmother's cake recipe and substituted it with one that I've made many times, the Hershey's 5-minute Deep Dark Chocolate cake recipe. I used Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate cocoa in this cake. Since I was making two round 9" cakes, I wasn't sure how much filling and icing to make (the original recipe called for a 9x13" cake sliced in half or made in two pans). I decided to just make the full amount of filling and icing to see how much I needed. Afterall, both of those taste great left over! I probably used about 1.5 pounds of the ricotta mixture and about 1.5 pints of the heavy whipping cream mixture. I bought the heavy cream and ricotta at Trader Joe's, and both were very tasty. They also did not have preservatives like the ones I could have bought at Giant. I indicated below the amounts of powdered sugar I used in both the filling and icing, but those can be adjusted to taste and your preference.

I love all of the components of this cake, and the final product was delicious! It was easy to make, especially since I used a chocolate cake recipe I was already familiar with. If you love chocolate and ricotta, I highly recommend trying this recipe! If you don't like whipped cream icing, you can substitute your favorite icing. I saw some similar recipes online that used chocolate icing, but I think the whipped cream icing keeps this already rich cake a little lighter than a buttercream or other type of icing would and pairs nicely with the ricotta filling. Just make sure you have room to refrigerate this cake once it's assembled and in the event that you have any left over!

Edit January 2022: I just made this cake for the first time in a few years for my twin sons' 4th Birthday. My store-bought ricotta must have needed drained because the filling was a bit runny so it was spilling out of the cake layers. I made a double layer 9" round cake and had a little bit of filling left over and a good amount of whipped cream. My friend Tara later told me that she started using chocolate icing on the sides and doing the cannoli filling on top because the whipped cream doesn't hold up. I might try it like that at some point.

Mama DeSelm’s Chocolate Cake with Ricotta Filling

This cake is a family favorite.

Prepare your favorite chocolate cake recipe. Pour into greased and floured 9” x 13” pan. Slice in half for filling or make two cakes for two layers. Alternately, use two 9” pans for a round two layer cake (if making a round cake, reduce the filling and icing recipes by a little bit).

FILLING:

2 pounds Ricotta Cheese

½ cup powdered sugar (adjust amount to taste)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 bag Chocolate Chips or Mini Chocolate Chips

ICING:

2 pints Heavy Whipping Cream

¼ cup powdered sugar (adjust amount to taste)

Beat ricotta cheese and powdered sugar until creamy. Don’t over beat cheese. Blend in vanilla. Stir in chocolate chips (amount of chips may be altered to personal preference).

Beat whipping cream. Add a little powdered sugar to whipping cream to sweeten. Frost cake with whipped cream.

NOTE: If the ricotta is watery, put it in a strainer and drain it for a bit.