Description
If you love lemon and basil, you'll love these cookies. The ricotta keeps them nice and moist. Adapted and tweaked from a giada de laurentiis recipe. She didn't use basil, but i thought they screamed for it! Depending on your cookie scoop or spoon size, you can expect to get about 36-40 cookies out of this. This cookie is more cake-like and is not a crisp cookie.
Ingredients
- All-purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Unsalted Butter
- Sugar
- Fresh Basil
- Eggs
- Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese
- Lemon Juice
- Lemon
- Powdered Sugar
- Hazelnuts
- Lemon Zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375
- Cookies:
- In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt
- Set aside
- Combine sugar and roughly minced basil in food processor
- Process / pulse until basil is thoroughly incorporated with sugar
- Using an electric mixer beat the butter with the basil sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes
- Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated
- Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest
- Beat to combine
- Stir in the dry ingredients
- Chill dough for 1 hour
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Scoop cold dough and roll into ball and flatten lightly with bottom of a glass
- If sticking occurs, dip bottom of glass in water then granulated sugar then proceed
- If using hazelnut sugar / lemon topping: make as described below, then continue to bake for 12-15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges
- Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes
- Using optional topping, you will omit the glaze
- Glaze:
- Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth
- Spoon about 1 / 2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread
- Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours
- Pack the cookies into a decorative container
- Hazelnut sugar / lemon topping:
- Take hazelnut, sugar and lemon zest or lemon oil and process in food processor to a fine powder
- Take dough, form into balls and roll in mixture and flatten with the bottom of a glass
- Proceed to baking instructions