Sophia Loren’s Ricotta condita

By Frank / 4 April 2025 / 36 Comments / dessert/dolci / No cook, quick

My cyber friend Stefano of Italian Home Cooking—a blog you should check out and subscribe to if you haven’t already—recently posted an intriguing recipe for pasta with a simple tomato sauce scented with bay leaf and cinnamon. I had to try it, and it was truly superb.

What does this have to do with today’s recipe? Well, Stefano’s recipe was adapted from Sophia Loren’s 1971 cookbook In cucina con amore. Sophia Loren wrote a cookbook? That piqued my curiosity, so I went looking and, as it turned out, the book was already sitting forgotten on my Kindle wishlist.

Now I’m usually wary of celebrity cookbooks, but as I browsed through its pages I realized this one was the real deal. True, it has a lot of familiar classic dishes and some retro recipes that just about scream “1970s”. But I also found some appealing personal recipes, including today’s recipe for ricotta condita, literally “Flavored Ricotta”.

The recipe is so simple, it’s practically magic. You whip ricotta cheese with sugar, cocoa and a bit of cognac. Presto, in a matter of seconds, you’ll have a creamy ambrosia with the taste and mouth feel of a rich chocolate mousse.

Loren says that this recipe was a favorite of actor Peter Sellers, of Pink Panther fame, who would always ask for it whenever he visited her at her gorgeous villa outside Rome. And that while she doesn’t normally make dessert at home, she makes exceptions for people she truly cares about, since telling someone “I made this for you, I know you like it” is a greater expression of love or friendship than the most expensive store-bought gift.

Loren was so right about homemade desserts. The same goes for homemade food in general, really. And Sellers was right about ricotta condita, too. It’s delicious.

Ricotta condita is so very quick and easy to make—the kind of thing that tastes like a million bucks but can be whipped up quite literally in seconds—it should be part of anyone’s culinary repetoire.

Ingredients

Serves 4

500g (1 lb) ricotta cheese
3-4 Tbs sugar (or more to taste)
3-4 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
2 jiggers of cognac (or other liqueur)

Directions

If your ricotta looks wet, drain it well in a colander for at least 30 minutes. (See Notes for details.)

In a large bowl, whip the ricotta vigorously with the sugar and cocoa powder until smooth, uniform and fluffy.

Add the cognac and whip again to incorporate.

Taste and, if needed, adjust the mixture for taste, texture and color. (See Notes below for details.)

Serve in dessert glasses or bowls, topped if you like with a dusting of cocoa.

Notes on ricotta condita

As simple as this recipe is, it’s important to balance the flavorings just right for the best results. I’ve given you Loren’s measurements, but you should feel free to make adjustments to achieve this balance, as well as to suit your own preferences. You’re looking for a balance of taste, texture and color:

The cocoa will affect color and, of course, how intensely chocolate-y your dessert will be. I’m my view, you want enough for good flavor without completely overwhelming the mild taste of the ricotta. The color should be a lovely mocha.
The sugar offsets the bitterness of the cocoa, just how much being a matter of taste. You could certainly increase the amounts given here—I like to add an extra spoonful and I don’t have a sweet tooth—but as Sofia advises, I wouldn’t go overboard.
The cognac provides a lovely aroma and, for lack of a better word, a little oomph. It also serves to soften the mixture, which should be light and fluffy but still hold together. Aim for a mousse-like consistency.

And although you could use a wooden spoon or spatula, the ideal instrument for mixing the ingredients is indeed a whisk. If you have a dough whisk, that’s best, since the mixture is a bit dense for a regular one.

Ricotta

The most important ingredient in ricotta condita is, of course, the ricotta. That may sound ludicrously obvious, but many people don’t realize that not all ricotta is created equal. Italian ricotta in particular is quite different from the product you’ll find elsewhere. If you ask an Italian living abroad what foods they miss most, ricotta is often on the list. The good news is that the quality of local ricotta is improving, at least here in the US.

Loren begins her recipe with a paean to the quality of Roman ricotta. It is, of course, superb, but those of us who don’t live in Rome will just have to settle for the best quality ricotta we can find locally. First choice, if you can find it, would be so called ‘hand dipped’ ricotta. Luckily, I can find some excellent hand dipped ricottas at the better supermarkets near me. Hand dipped ricotta has wonderful sweet taste and creamy texture. At the same time it also tends to be more compact than commercial ricotta you may be more familiar with, so you’re unlikely to need to drain it. In fact, it may need a bit more cognac (or milk) to soften it.

Commercial ricotta, by contrast, tends to be rather soft and wet, so it often needs draining. And you might want to add just one jigger of liqueur and gauge its texture before adding the second. It also tends to have a slightly grainy texture. If this bothers you, you could press it through a fine mesh colander. Do make sure it’s whole milk ricotta for the creamiest result.

Other ingredients

Loren doesn’t specify the kind of sugar she uses for ricotta condita but personally I find caster (aka superfine) sugar works best as it melts quickly into the mixture without leaving any graininess. If you’re using regular granulated sugar, let the mousse sit for a while before serving.

As for the cocoa, other than it being unsweetened I’d simply go for the best quality you can find. The kind you would use for making a top notch hot cocoa. On this score, another foodie friend, David Scott Allen of Cocoa & Lavender, has some excellent suggestions.

Resting and making ahead

While Loren doesn’t mention it in her recipe, I think it’s not a bad idea to let your ricotta condita chill in the fridge for a spell before serving. This allows time for the sugar to melt and the flavors to meld. But I wouldn’t go longer than an hour or two, as it might well form a crust in the dry air of a fridge. Take it out a few minutes before serving to take the chill off.

Variations

Loren herself suggests some interesting ways to vary her recipes for ricotta condita. She says you can make it with cinnamon or finely ground coffee instead of chocolate. I tried them both and they’re not bad, though I prefer the original chocolate version. And if you use coffee, you’ll need to grind it very fine (as for espresso) and add a fair amount of sugar, more than with chocolate.

Loren also says you can use aromatic liqueurs than cognac. She mentions a fruit flavored acquavit goes well with cinnamon, for example. I’d also suggest that rum or bourbon would both be nice choices with chocolate. I’ve also made ricotta condita with an almond liqueur, which I liked even better than the cognac.

Sophia Loren at Villa Sara

For most people of my generation Sophia Loren needs no introduction. But as I get older, I’m realizing that many of the figures I thought were cultural icons have dropped out of the public consciousness, especially for younger people. So perhaps a short introduction is in order.

Sophia Loren was perhaps the most famous Italian actress of the 1950s and 60s. A native of the town of Pozzuoli near Naples, she is perhaps best known for the classic 1960 war film La Ciociara, known in English as Two Women, for which she earned an Oscar for Best Actress. But during her career spanning over 70 years she has appeared in countless other films, including House Boat with Cary Grant, It Started in Naples with Clark Gable, and Matrimonio all’italiana (Marriage Italan Style) with Marcello Mastoianni, for which she was nominated for a second Oscar.And incredibly, she’s still acting. Her last film, the 2020 La vita davanti a se (The Life Ahead) directed by her son Edoardo Ponti, is well worth a watch, not least for her moving performance, for which she won a Donatello award for Best Actress.

Loren is also an avid food lover. According to a 1961 profile in LIFE Magazine:

She eats everything in sight, washed down with red wine, and when teased about her appetite narrows her eyes in her best temptress look, swivels her shoulders provocatively and says in a Mae West voice, “Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti.”
LIFE magazine, published on Aug. 11, 1961

I love this quote, but disappointingly, in a 2015 interview with The New York Times, she denied ever saying it.

But what she has never hidden was her lifelong love affair with food, especially the food of her native Campania. Besides being a talented home cook, she wrote two cookbooks, In cucina con amore and her 1998 Recipes and Memories. And just recently, in parnership with Michelin star Neapolitan chef Gennaro Esposito, the 90 year old Loren opened a restaurant named Sophia Loren Original Italian Food in Florence. There are plans to open other locations in Italy and abroad.

In 1957 Loren married film producer Carlo Ponti, who promised to buy her “the most beautiful home in the world“. That turned out to be a 50 room villa in the town of Marino in the Alban Hills just outside Rome. Dubbed Villa Sara, the place was indeed spectacular, as you can see in these photos from a 1964 spread in LIFE Magazine:

At Villa Sara, she would host dinner parties for the rich and famous, including Peter Sellers and her lifelong friend and frequent co-star Marcello Mastroianni, as well as Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Antony Quinn, Kirk Douglas, as well as Italian luminaries such as Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Alberto Sordi and Silvana Mangano.

Loren sold Villa Sara after Ponti died in 2007. It reportedly is now owned by a member of the Italian Parliament, who bought the property in 2021 for 16 million euros. She now lives mainly iin Geneva. Hopefully she’s still cooking.

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