It felt a bit like I was making a cake out of mayonnaise.

The recipe had been spotted on Saturday morning in the food section of The Guardian.  A ring cake made with olive oil, eggs, flour and ricotta.

It took some searching in the basement to find the ring mould I knew that I had. In fact that was the longest part of the process.

The flour was sifted with sugar and baking powder.

In another bowl I whisked together a tub of ricotta with olive oil. This looked unprepossessing. In fact it looked like a badly split sauce. But as I whisked in the eggs it came together just as a good mayonnaise should.

The wet was then stirred into the dry with the zest of two unwaxed lemons and then scraped into the oil mould and into the oven for 40 minutes.

The recipe suggested testing it was ready with a strand of spaghetti. I use a metal skewer.

It went well with yogurt.

We ate it listening to The National.