For two decades, this has been one of our favorite recipes, easy to throw together, dress up or down, and wonderful with a variety of fruit toppings, depending on what’s in-season or on-hand. Blueberry, strawberry, blackberry, and cherry toppings are some of our favorite.

This recipe falls somewhere between a Finnish Pancake – one giant custard-like pancake, baked in a 9×13 pan – and blintzes, stuffed with ricotta. Unlike blintz, there’s none of the tedious work of making and filling individual crepes, but instead, only requires a food processor (or blender) to whip up the batter (used on the top and bottom) and the filling (sandwiched between the batter). This is super-easy to make, any day of the week, but rich and flavorful enough to make for special occasions.

If you don’t have ricotta, substitute cottage cheese, which produces a less-rich, lighter texture. Substitute 1 cup of mascarpone, for a little added decadence.

It’s assumed all ingredients are farm-fresh, made-from scratch. Use my Easy Ricotta and Quark (substitute in place of sour cream), as guides.

Baked Orange-Kissed Breakfast Blintz

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Crust Batter (will be divided into 2 parts)

• 1 1/3 cup milk
• 3 T sour cream
• 4 T unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs;
• 1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1 T baking powder

1. Place all ingredients in food processor, blend until smooth.
2. Pour half into the bottom of a 9×13 baking pan.
3. Bake for 10-minutes until set.
4. While crust is baking, prepare the filling.
5. Don’t bother cleaning out the food-processor bowl; you’ll need it for the filling, and a little bit of batter isn’t going to compromise the filling.

Filling

• 4 cups ricotta cheese (or 3 cups and 1 cup mascarpone cheese)
• 2 eggs
• 2 T sugar
• Zest of one medium orange
• Juice of one-half orange
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp sea salt

• Place all ingredients in food processing bowl, blending until smooth
• Carefully and evenly pour the filling over the baked bottom crust
• Cover the filling with the remaining batter
• Place in oven, reducing oven heat temp to 325F; bake 35-40 minutes until the top is lightly golden and a toothpick, inserted into the middle, comes out clean.
• Allow to stand for 10-15 minutes to set.
• Cut and serve squares with your favorite fruit jam or sauce along with a dollop of sour cream.