Nigel Slater’s recipes for ricotta cake, and for roast tomatoes with thyme and garlic toasts

Ricotta brings a gentle touch to cakes and summer lunchCool, milky and calm, fresh ricotta is the perfect cheese for a summer afternoon. Chalk white and soft as snow, it is the mildest of the fresh cheeses. Made from whey, it is not quite milk, not quite cheese. The sort you can buy in tubs from the supermarkets will be rather firm, but the best is the softest and freshest that you can find in Italian grocers and specialist cheese shops. It will usually come with tiny indentations from the mould