I grew up in a household that didn’t celebrate christmas. As a result there was also never a tradition of the flurry of baking mass amounts of christmas cookies. I’ve also never been a huge snacking person, preferring meals to eating tidbits here and there, so I was really stepping out of my “Cooking comfort zone” by taking on some baking this past year.

We were, for the first time since I’ve been in Philly, not going to be doing New years at our house with all our friends and so a bunch of people were going to touch base at our house and then we would all drive to DE to spend New years there. In between would be the christmas holidays which we were planning on spending at some very good family friends’ house. I decided I would bring some dessert with us – in the form of cookies. A friend of mine, Kim, had recently put up some yummy looking pictures of cookies on her facebook feed and I was intrigued. Ricotta cookies? Really?

She was sweet enough to send me the recipe and I decided it was easy enough for me to try. You have to understand something about me. I’m very type A in a lot of things in my life… except for cooking. I cook in a very slap dash manner. Shake of this. Pinch of that. THROW IN ALL THE SPICES EVARRRRRRR. Say a quick prayer, stir and hope it tastes like awesome…

… It almost always does

Baking… Baking scares the pants off me. Its so very precise. You need to put in 1/8th of a teaspoon of baking soda. NO MORE OR IT’LL EXPLODE!!! NO LESS OR YOU’LL HAVE A FLAT COOKIE/CAKE/CRUMPET. It makes me very very anxious. I know… I know… I have issues.

So, because this particular (rachel ray) recipe looked easy, I decided to give it a go.

I set the mood by putting on some Michael Buble music to set off the gorgeous snow fall we were getting outside:

I got my game face on:

and got out all my ingredients. It was then that I realized that I had no mixer. WHAAAAAT???? NO mixer you say? Whats the big deal? Well its a huge deal when you have about 20 gajillion pounds of sugar to whip together with an equal amount of jillions of butter. By. Hand.

It was no small feat I tell you. My right arm would now make The Rock’s guns look like childs play. I beat that butter and sugar until it screamed for mercy and called Uncle:

Isn’t it so very fluffy? Never mind that while I was busy trying to be June Cleaver I was also cussing up a storm and a half at the fact that we never got a mixer. GAH!

Anyways, I got the rest of the ingredients put together:

75 cookies later, I had a giant stash of lemon glaze ricotta cookies AND dark chocolate drizzle cookies:

And let me tell you, as the official quality control/taste tester of those cookies: THEY WERE FRIGGING AMAZING!

You should go make these, especially if you have a mixer (lucky!… wanna let me borrow???) and then take pictures of them and send them to all your friends who aren’t gonna be eating them. Hehehe.

 

{Rachel Ray’s Ricotta Cookies}

Makes 75

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

For the Lemon Glaze:

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice (if the glaze is too thick, add more juice – too thin, add more sugar)
• zest from one lemon 

Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time and beat thoroughly. Add ricotta and vanilla; beat 1 minute.

Sift together dry ingredients then combine with moist ingredients until thoroughly incorporated. Drop by  teaspoon onto cookie sheet (I use a melon ball  to get a uniform size). The dough is sticky.

Bake for 11-15 minutes until bottoms are light brown.

Meanwhile, mix all ingredients for the glaze until smooth.  If too thick, add a bit more milk. Once cooled, you can frost these with the glaze.

For the dark chocolate drizzle, place a heat safe bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and slowly melt dark chocolate pieces in the bowl while stirring constantly to allow the chocolate to melt without boiling. Once melted, you can drizzle the chocolate as you wish over the cookies.

While your waist line may hate you for these cookies, your mouth and tummy will thank you.

 

Happy nomming!

 

original link to recipe here: Rachel Ray Ricotta Cookies