Lemon Ricotta Cookies – Quick & Easy Baking

As many of you may know I just love lemon, and particularly in cookies and cakes.  So I decided to to make some soft lemon cookies.  These cookies have a lovely soft, almost cake-like texture and a subtle lemon flavour.  Not overly sweet they are ideal to snack on, or perhaps have for breakfast too.

The recipe is another very simple one, that takes little time, so they can be ready to eat very quickly.  I did consider icing the cookies with some lemon icing, but after tasting them I decided that it wasn’t necessary.  That is an option though for those who want an extra hit of sweetness and of lemon flavour.

The entire recipe can easily be made by hand, but I used my hand mixer to do the creaming and main mixing.  

I made 36 cookies but this recipe can make more, smaller cookies that would be just as good.

I loved how mine turned out, with the lovely softness as I chewed them and the deliciously subtle lemon flavour.

Ingredients:

• 425g(3 cups minus 3 tbsp) plain or cake and pastry flour(based on 150g per cup)
• 112(1 stick) softened unsalted butter
• 200g(1 cup) caster, or granulated, sugar
• 250g(almost 9 oz) ricotta cheese
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 medium egg(large in USA)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• zest from a lemon, finely grated
• icing sugar for working on the counter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F
2. Line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder and lemon zest together and set aside.
4. In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
5. Add the ricotta cheese, egg, vanilla extract and lemon extract and whisk together until all is well combined.
6. Add the dry ingredients, in about 3 or 4 additions, mixing gently until fully incorporated.
7. Use your hands to pull the mixture into a soft dough.
8. Tip the dough out onto a work surface that has been sprinkled with icing sugar.
9. Divide the mixture into 36 roughly equal pieces.
10. Roll each piece into a ball, using some icing sugar on your hands if things become too sticky.
11. Place the balls onto the baking trays, leaving a gap of about an inch/2 cm as the cookies will expand during baking.
12. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
13. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely