I love a good cake, and I also love when they look pretty too! I’ve been wanting to make this Chocolate Italian Love Cake for quite awhile so I figured Valentine’s Day would be the perfect time. This cake is really simple to make, but the presentation looks like it took a lot of time and effort. When you start out, you put the cake batter on the bottom of the pan with the cheese layer on top; while it’s baking the layers magically switch! Then you top it off with a rich mousse like frosting and it’s pure heaven…simple, delicious and pretty!
1 chocolate fudge cake mix (do not use one with pudding in it) plus the ingredients on the box
32 ounces whole milk ricotta cheese
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 C sugar
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 (5.9 ounce) box chocolate instant pudding
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees; grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
Make the cake mix according to the package directions.
Pour into prepared baking dish; set aside.
Mix together the ricotta cheese, eggs, vanilla and sugar.
Slowly pour this over top of the cake batter.
You can see the chocolate layer is on the bottom and the white is on top.
Bake for 55-60 minutes. Now the chocolate layer is on top & the white layer is on the bottom. Cover & place in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
Whip together the heavy whipping cream and pudding mix. It will be thick!
Evenly spread the frosting onto the cake.
Slice, serve and enjoy!
I may have missed it, but does it need to be refrigerated ? Ty
Yes it does 🙂
What can be use in place of the pudding for the frosting?
You may be able to add some cocoa powder and powdered sugar, or just use a can of frosting, or your own favorite frosting recipe.
Can I use cream cheese instead of ricotta. I hate ricotta but i would love to try this.
I think it would work, but I'm not positive!
Followed the directions exactly and the layers did not switch. Can anyone tell us what we did wrong or why this happened? We are going to try again so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Please make sure you're using whole milk Ricotta, and a cake mix without added pudding in the mix 🙂
Yes, we used whole milk ricotta and no pudding in the cake mix. It tastes great but looks weird!!
Lol, I'm honestly not quite sure why it didn't switch, but I'm glad it tastes good!
Part-skim ricotta has a higher water content so it may not set up properly.