Sweet cheesecake

Part 2 of our adventure with fresh bay leaves was a sweet ricotta-based cheesecake.  After the partial success with Part 1, we were optimistic to try a recipe using a less-salty cheese.

The ingredients for the sweet cheesecake were more or less the same as the savory, with the addition of some honey after the baking process:

4 oz. flour
8 oz. ricotta
1 egg
Bay leaves
4 oz. honey

The main prep difference came while shaping the dough on the baking sheet; instead of one larger cake, the recipe called for four smaller cakes (though these turned out to be large enough to share).  For the same reasons as the savory cheesecake, we used more than the specified number of bay leaves for each cake.

Fresh bay leaves ready for the cheesecakes.

The baking method listed for these cakes was the same as that used for the savory cheesecake, placing a weight atop the cakes before baking.  We didn't do that this time, mostly because we didn't want to either wash the weight afterward, or have the weight take up a bunch of dishwasher real estate.  We did observe afterward that the cakes would have been flatter and smoother had we used the weights; as it was, the cakes puffed like soufflés in the oven and subsequently collapsed.  If anything, this affected the texture more than the taste: we thought this might have led to a lighter texture in the finished cakes, which we liked, so next time we try the savory cheesecake we will not use the weight.

Finished cakes after being dunked in honey.  We substantially reduced the baking time from the specified 35-40 minutes to about 20-25 minutes so that the cakes wouldn't brown too much.

Overall, we both preferred the sweet cheesecake to the savory, but that comes with two disclaimers:

1. We both prefer Italian food over almost all else, so I think we're predisposed to go with ricotta over feta in general.
2. We'd want to try the savory cheesecake again with a higher-quality feta.

Both of the recipes seem to be a good use of the fresh bay leaves, but the bay flavor generally disappears after about a day in the fridge, so these dishes would be best served on the same day as baking.

A half cheesecake (minus the bay leaves): perfect for a single serving.

The Classical Cookbook (1996); Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger; p. 93

Writeup background noise: Free Practice 1 of the Russian Grand Prix (when I originally drafted this last night), and NBCSN didn't have their commentators for it, so it was basically just various levels of car noise for an hour and a half punctuated by occasional radio communications between the drivers and their engineers.