Posts Tagged cardamom

Lemon-Cardamom Ricotta Cookies

Lemon-Cardamom Ricotta Cookies

The other day during one my regular refrigerator clean-ups, I found a container of unused ricotta cheese staring at me. I remembered buying it a while ago when I ventured into making a lemon ricotta cheesecake which I honestly, didn’t quite like. Maybe the recipe I tried was not the best out there. I didn’t want another cake this time and wanted something less complicated and less-time consuming. The first idea that struck me was cookies! And that’s when the Internet came to rescue. I did a quick search online and came up with a bunch of recipes including one from Giada de Laurentiis I liked more than others.

Giada’s recipe was for cookies with lemon glaze. I decided to skip the glaze part as I am not a big fan of light color glazes (dark chocolate glaze? yes please). Instead I dusted my cookies with powdered sugar. I also gave the cookies an Azerbaijani twist by adding just a little cardamom. The flavor of the cardamom married perfectly well with that of lemons.

Overall, I loved everything about these cookies – the taste, the texture (they are so soft), the looks! Below is the recipe with my modifications. If you want to make cookies without cardamom and with lemon glaze, check out Giada’s original recipe. Also, the original recipe says it yields 44 cookies, but I got only 22 ! I was happy with the results anyway – the cookies were not gigantic and were just a perfect size. Enjoy!

LEMON-CARDAMOM RICOTTA COOKIES
adapted from foodnetwork.com

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon ground cardamom (8 cardamom pods will give you about this amount of powder)
1 (4 oz / 115 g) stick unsalted butter (softened)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 (15 ounce /425 g ) container part-skim ricotta cheese
juice from 1 lemon
zest of 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 375F (190C).

2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom powder. Stir to mix and set aside.

3. In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar. Using an electric mixer beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients. Mix just until blended.

4. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie) onto the baking sheets. You should be able to get about 22 cookies (more if you put only one heaped tablespoonful). Do not spread the batter, just scoop spoonfuls of it on top of each other. Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space between the cookies as they will spread while baking. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. They will be white on top. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes. Once cool, generously dust the cookies with powdered (confectioner’s sugar).

Enjoy! Nush Olsun!