lemon ricotta cookies

I saw these Ricotta Cookies yesterday morning on Tastespotting.com and they looked so scrumptious that I bumped one of my planned recipes in favor of this one. The cookies are great because they are not too sweet, not too rich, they come together very quickly and they are a blank canvas as far as flavor is concerned. You can add lemon, almond, cinnamon... whatever flavor you want. I went with lemon and I haven't been able to stop eating them. They are light, fluffy and perfect with a hot cup of coffee or tea.



Total Recipe cost: $3.53
Servings Per Recipe: about 30 cookies
Cost per serving: $0.12 per cookie
Prep time: 10 min. Cook time: 15 min. Total: 25 min.

INGREDIENTS		COST
1/2 cup (1 stick)	butter, softened	$0.40
1 cup	granulated sugar	$0.18
1 large	egg	$0.15
1 tsp	vanilla	$0.30
1 cup	ricotta cheese	$0.92
2 cups	all purpose flour	$1.08
1 Tbsp	baking powder	$0.07
1/2 tsp	salt	$0.05
1 cup	powdered sugar	$0.18
1 medium	lemon	$0.20
TOTAL		$3.53

STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Whip together the softened butter and granulated sugar until you get a light fluffy paste. A mixer is best for this but if you don't have one (like me... I know, I should), you can just use a fork and a lot of elbow grease. It won't be easy unless your butter is really soft.

STEP 2: Once the butter and sugar are mixed together, add the egg, vanilla extract and ricotta. Zest the lemon and add in half of the zest, reserving the rest for garnish. Mix until all of those "wet" ingredients are well combined.

STEP 3: In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Make sure they are well combined - chunks of baking powder are not delicious.

STEP 4: Mix together the bowl of wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until you have a thick paste like batter. Using a spoon, drop balls of the batter onto an ungreased baking sheet two inches apart. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

STEP 5: In a small bowl prepare the glaze by combining 1 cup of powdered sugar and the juice of the lemon that you previously zested (be careful not to let the seeds drop in). Using a spoon, smear a small amount over top of the baked cookies. ENJOY!

Step By Step Photos


Cream together the butter and sugar until it is a light, slightly fluffy paste.


Add in the egg, vanilla and ricotta and mix until it looks like...


...until they look like this.


In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) until they are well combined.


Now mix the wet and dry together until you have this thick batter. Drop the batter onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.


They will be nice and golden brown on top when done. Slather some glaze on top and eat 'em up! One at a time please...



NOTE: I used an old coffee scoop to measure my batter when dropping them onto the cookie sheet. I think it was a 2 Tbsp scoop and I got 30 cookies out of it. The batter was so thick that the handle broke off the scoop... The cookies are worth it though. RIP scoop!