- Hey, everyone.

Today we're making ricotta toasts, a savory option for your ricotta cheese.

So sit back, relax, and come join me on "The Baking Journal."

(bright guitar music) To get us started with our ricotta toast, we are going to start with two cups of ricotta cheese.

And to the ricotta cheese, you can add whatever kind of herbs you like best.

But what we are doing today is adding a two or three green onions that I chopped, into the mix.

We are adding about an eighth of a cup or so of chopped fresh basil.

And also, about an eighth of a cup of chopped fresh dill to the mix.

Those are the three that I like best, so that's what we're doing today.

And we're also going to add a half a teaspoon of salt.

You can kind of play with the salt and add a little bit less, a little bit more to taste, but I usually like to start with that and see where we end up.

And it's as simple now as just combining all of our herbs into our ricotta.

And it's just going to give it just a wonderful flavor.

Nice little savory combination of freshness from the herbs and just the flavor from the green onions.

It gives it a little bit of kick from the dill.

It just is a wonderful mixture that will be delicious on top of our toast.

So as you can see, goes in pretty easy, and by the way, this is ricotta cheese that I made myself.

You can watch a video that we did on how to make it yourself as well.

It's really, really easy.

And it just adds to the overall freshness of the ricotta cheese.

So I think this is good.

So here we have it nicely combined.

And next up, we're going to toast our bread.

And we'll then put our ricotta cheese on top of our toast.

(bright guitar music) So we set aside our ricotta cheese mixture, and the next step is to get our bread nice and toasted.

What I'm gonna do is take a little bit of olive oil, and this olive oil is flavored with garlic, but you can use plain olive oil.

You can use whatever flavor of olive oil you'd like.

And all I'm going to do is put some olive oil on the front and back of our bread and just place it on the grill like so.

And let it get nice and toasty.

I've got my griddle up to the highest level.

Hey, if you've got your, you know, if you have a a grill outside and you're doing other things, you certainly could put these little toasts out on the grill.

They would be just as delicious.

But for now, this is what we're using to make our toast.

So we're just gonna continue to oil our bread.

And the bread that I'm using is just off the shelf, seeded bread, a tasty bread.

But again, use whatever your favorite bread is.

Up to you.

There are a lot of delicious breads out there, for sure.

So we're just gonna continue on here.

Not sure that you can hear it, but if you listen very carefully, you can hear a little sizzle.

And we love that little sizzle.

(bright guitar music) What I'm doing, too, is just gonna wait until they get brown on one side.

I'm gonna flip 'em and get 'em brown on the other side.

I forgot this side here.

Be very careful, you guys.

Don't wanna burn yourself on the hot grill.

(bright guitar music) These guys are sizzling away.

Let's check the first one and see what we're doing underneath.

So just, it's getting there.

I just wanted to get just a little bit browner before I flip it.

And then what we're going to do, once we do flip all of these, is take our ricotta cheese mixture, we're going to spread it over our toasts.

But then I'm going to show you a little way to fancy 'em up.

If you guys have been watching, you know me well enough to know that I love to put a little fancy on if I can.

So we're going to make little caviar flowers.

But that's after we get these things toasted.

So here, see, they're starting to get brown.

You can see that on that one.

There we go.

These guys are looking good.

We're gonna brown 'em up on the other side.

I think now you can maybe hear this sizzle.

(bread sizzling) (bright guitar music) Ooh.

That one has a nice color on it.

(bright guitar music) All right, we're gonna let these guys brown up on the other side, and when we come back, we'll spread our ricotta cheese mixture.

So here's our toasted bread.

And now we're going to spread our ricotta cheese mixture onto our bread.

What we have here, just so you guys know, is just some chives that I just barely chopped off the ends.

And I also chopped off some of the green parts of the green onion.

I'm gonna use these for stems for the final decoration.

And what we have here is some Whitefish caviar, because that's what we're going to make our little flowers at the very end.

So let's get started with our ricotta cheese spread.

So pretty easy, right?

We're just gonna take our bread.

Now honestly, if you didn't want to make a fancy little flower design, you certainly could just take the toast, spread the ricotta cheese around, and it would be delicious like this.

You could also maybe not add all of the herbs, just spread the ricotta cheese, plain, onto some toast.

Drizzle a little honey, maybe chop up some pistachios, or put some pine nuts on top.

That would be delicious, too.

So there's lots of options for these, but these are just fabulous for just a special little appetizer or whatever really occasion you would like.

Or no occasion and just eat 'em every day.

Why not?

All right, so I'm just gonna continue to spread the ricotta on.

I like to spread kind of on the thick side because I like the taste of the ricotta cheese and it's a nice little creamy contrast to the crunchy toasty bread.

So we're just spreading along here.

And plus, the more ricotta cheese that you have here on your toast, I like to think of it as the bigger canvas that you have to make your beautiful flower.

So there's that guy.

Last one.

(bright guitar music) And as you can see, the two cups of ricotta cheese makes a whole lot more than what we have here for these five toasts.

So, you know, hey, go crazy.

Toast up as many of the breads as you'd like.

All right, so now we have our ricotta spread out nicely, and this is pretty easy peasy.

Be as creative as you like.

Or not, totally up to you.

But what I'm going to do is just take one of my chive stems.

I'm going to just put it in the center here, kind of twist it around to make it look like a stem.

I'm gonna take, I'm looking for a little shorter one, maybe, but I can't find one.

So I'm just gonna take one of my chive stems and just maybe fold it in half.

And then I'm going to loop that around here to make it kind of look a little decorative.

And then, we're just gonna take some of the caviar and just spread it around like a little flower design.

And if you want, because why not?

Just kind of add a little bit, maybe along this stem, to make it look like we have a little bit of a flower along here.

And honestly, it is as simple as that.

You can make each one a little bit different.

Whatever you'd like to do.

But now, I'm going to do something entirely different.

Well, not entirely, but maybe a little different on this one.

So now I'm taking a green onion piece.

Again, putting it in the center.

I'm gonna take another green onion piece, a little bit thicker.

Just kind of make it maybe at a V. And now I just wanna take my caviar and I'm going to, instead of making like one big flower, I'm gonna take maybe three smaller balls of the caviar.

And trust me, this is, I mean, this is more of an abstract design than it is exacting.

So don't worry if, you know, it's like, eek, gas.

I just went kind of crazy on this last little flower.

It's quite all right.

So there's one little flower.

And I think I'm just going to do one little dollop over here, and maybe a little... ah, it won't come off the spoon.

Maybe a little dollop down below as well.

And kinda just one more to even it out.

Down here.

And there's our second one.

I'll just put these up here so you guys can see 'em as we go.

Again, one more time.

Let's do this one on a little bit of a diagonal.

So a chive stem.

And let's mix it up.

Let's take this one.

Let's just do a piece of green onion.

And over to the far side here, we're just going to put a dollop of our caviar, and maybe this time, run it down along the chive.

Like this.

And then just put one little dollop there.

(bright guitar music) So you guys kinda gettin' the hint here?

I mean, it's really whatever you feel like you would like to see.

And again, you know, you're like, I am not gonna bother with that.

You can just basically skip the Chives all together.

Here I'm just putting chives across.

And hey, there's nothing wrong with saying, there we go.

We're putting this caviar right smack in the middle.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that.

You know, if you don't want the caviar in the middle, put whatever you want on the topping.

You know, you can, like I said, just drizzle some honey.

Gosh, you could put a little, you know, if you like pepperoni, if you like a little bit of ham.

You could make into, you know, little strips.

You can put on the top of your toasts whatever your heart desires.

And on this last one, I'm not gonna do any stems at all, but maybe I'm just going to put a dollop in the center, and keep it pretty simple.

So you can see that it's every bit as beautiful with it just being in the center.

And this one, I can't wait.

So the beauty of making them all up is you get to eat them right away.

I'm gonna give this one a taste.

But you know what?

I'll have to take too big of a bite to get all of that caviar.

So for my own tasting pleasure, I'm putting a little bit of caviar on the end, and here it goes.

I tell you what, you guys.

The bread, the toastiness of the bread.

Now I used a seeded bread, so I get a little bit of crunch from the seeds in the bread.

The garlic oil that I use gives a little extra added flavor on the toast.

But this fresh ricotta with the herbs, and then the added salt and creaminess of the caviar.

Oh my gosh.

You have got to treat yourself.

Maybe not today.

Tomorrow?

I don't know, right now?

I hope you try this and I hope you enjoy.

(bright guitar music)