Ricotta Cookies

Here is a recipe that we featured last year during the holidays. These cookies are so moist and delicious that we couldn’t not share them with you again….

You knew it had to be coming. It was only a matter of time. It’s cookie week. It may be my favorite seven days of this ever loving blog. Plus any one who knows me an ounce, knows I love cookies. They’re my achilles heel. I bust my butt in the gym for the simple reason that it affords me more cookies. And so I took this week very seriously. I dug deep. Searched high and low. Excitedly read recipe after recipe in search of great cookies. I considered the rosemary and pinenut cookie, but scratched it because I crave sweet this time of year. Mulled over the flourless peanut-chocolate chip version, but decided I had to consider the allergy issue. Finally, there were the Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies: thin, crisp dark chocolate mint cookies coated in white chocolate and then sprinkled with crushed candy cane. On second thought, it may have been a bad idea not making those.

Maybe I’ll squeeze those in later. In the end, I settled on Ricotta Cookies plucked from a special holiday cookie supplement by Canadian Living magazine. Since I had traditional gingerbread covered (You’ll see those later this week), I liked the idea of these treats. They have the quiet sweetness of a shortbread with the moistness of a brownie. Top with a cream cheese icing and you have a festive cookie. Plus it’s not too cute like a gingerbread man. Unless of course you want it to be. Then the skies the limit when decorating using sprinkles, dragees or non pareils.

I struck out on on my own–Scarlett was happily playing with her father. Yet it wasn’t long before her baking instincts kicked in. She arrived in the kitchen just in time to drop the dough on the baking sheet. She also took over the entire icing preparation.

We all had fun taking turns frosting and decorating the cookies. It became a bit of a competition who could come up with a better design idea.

My husband raised the bar when he pulled out a mini-heart stencil and screened a red heart onto one. Show off. I, personally, liked Scarlett’s self portrait in red and green sprinkles. However, I guess it really doesn’t matter. They all taste the same going down and they were, in a word, yum!