A Little Kitchen

Last year, Carson and I established a sort of tradition. Whenever he makes his fancy très Italian lasagne there always seems to be a container of ricotta leftover. Rather than worrying over costs of such an ingredient, I found a recipe online for Lemon Ricotta Cookies which I’ve tweaked over the year. These cookies are soft, sweet, and slightly tangy. They are the best way to finish off a hearty homemade lasagne. Since Carson can’t share his mother’s secret lasagne recipe, it makes sense that I can share this instead.

What you’ll need:

Icing:

The original recipe called for 15oz of Ricotta cheese, but, since this isn’t an exact science, we never seem to be able to match that amount. I’ve found that substituting in a thick yogurt seems to pick up the slack quite well. Carson usually details his steps in a recipe, but I find that I prefer listing the actions involved and then adding in comments and tips.

A couple comments about this recipe. I hesitated over using this recipe since Carson and I agreed only to post original versions of recipes. But we decided that I’ve tweaked the recipe so much over the year that it’s become my own. Secondly, as a warning, these cookies are sweet. They are sweet sugary goodness so be wary while eating them or you could lapse into a food coma. Also, this creates around 3 dozen cookies, so make sure you have room on your counter. Now before I go any further, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking sheet. It’s better to start this early than mid-way through the recipe.

First cream the margarine and sugar, making sure to vigorously stir until it is light and fluffy. Add in the eggs and keep on stirring. Zest the lemons over the mixture, or, if you’re smarter than me, zest first and add later. Add the lemon juice, the almond extract, and the ricotta cheese. The mixture should be a thick liquid.

Add half of the flour, making sure to stir the mixture all the way through. Once combined, add the baking powder and salt. Slowly add the the rest of the flour, stirring throughout. The cookie dough will be the consistency of thick icing. Don’t worry, this is supposed to happen.

Dollop the dough onto the greased baking sheets and put into the oven for 10 minutes. The cookies will have a golden edge but the tops will still be slightly jiggley. They will look under done but they will be deceptively cooked.

Cream together the icing sugar and margarine. Add in the lemon juice until it reaches a smooth consistency. Thinly ice the cookies while they are still warm from the oven.

Sit back and enjoy. Or do the dishes. Whatever you desire.

For softer, chewier cookies reduce the flour to 625mL, for a firmer cookie increase to 750mL. I find that 675mL is the perfect mélange of soft and firm.

Tags: cookies, dessert, lemon, ricotta

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 11:27 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.