Italian Cheesecake

Italian Cheesecake
(from Dom Deluise's Eat This Too!)

Ingredients:
Pastry:
3/4 cup sifted flour
2 tbsp soft unsalted butter
1 tbsp sweet sherry or white port (I used Frangelico the second time, yum!)

Filling:
2 cups ricotta cheese (see this link for homemade ricotta)
4 tbsp flour
3/4 cups brown sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs separated (room temperature)
1/2 cup whipping cream 35%

Directions:

**** Updated March 31 2018: I won't chill this pastry anymore. I will put it right into the pie plate and chill it that way, it's just too difficult to work with when chilled. 

1. To make the pastry, mix together the flour and butter until it resembles a coarse meal. Add the sherry a little at a time to form a stiff ball. Chill.

**note (I needed to add more butter after it chilled because it was way too crumbly)

2. Preheat oven to 300F.

3. Roll out the dough into a circle and put in the bottom of a 9 inch pie pan.

4. Mix ricotta, flour, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. Beat the egg yolks very gently then fold into the ricotta mixture. Whip the cream separately and fold into ricotta mixture. Beat the egg white until stiff and fold into ricotta mixture.

5. Pour into pastry shell and bake for 1 hour. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for another hour with the oven door closed. Remove and cool.