Recipe: Lemon Ricotta Cookies & Lemon Crinkle Cookies
A glorious thing happened this past weekend. After 3 years of living in my current home, I finally met my next door neighbors who own the house and gorgeous garden our place looks out to (with sadly, no access!) Our building doesn't have any outdoor space (¡qué lástima!) so we could only appreciate this beaut from afar...until a few days ago. Read on.
In my experience of living in SF, you typically don't meet your neighbors...at all. It certainly doesn't happen naturally like most of us were accustomed to growing up in the burbs. Even if you passed them on the street, you wouldn't know them from Joe Schmo. The other day, while I was kickin' it outside my building trying to decide on house paint colors (TMI), this lovely couple came up to me and introduced themselves as my next door neighbors– the ones with the backyard garden. "YES. The day has finally come," I thought. After our meet and greet, which involved a lot of garden raving on my end, we exchanged info AND they invited me over for "a tour of the garden, from the other side" for the following day. EEK. That next evening, my <new favorite> neighbors had me over and took me on this heavily anticipated garden tour. Guys, this garden was even more glorious in person. As we walked though the yard, they kindly offered me lemons from their lemon tree along with a few other items. They also generously invited me to come back anytime if I ever needed anything else. On my walk back to my apartment with an extra bounce in my step, I had Ice Cube's "Today Was A Good Day" playing in my head.
With these neighborly lemons, I made two different kinds of lemon cookies: Lemon Ricotta Cookies and Lemon Crinkle Cookies. The Lemon Ricotta Cookie recipe comes from my blogger-buddy Jamie's fabulous blog and the Lemon Crinkle Cookie recipe comes from another blogger who's cookie won in a cookie-off.
Lemon Ricotta Cookies
Recipe from JforJamie.com
Yield: Makes about 30 cookies
Ingredients – Cookies
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter – softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 15oz container whole milk ricotta cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice – I use the juice of 1 whole lemon
1 lemon, zested
Ingredients – Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice or juice of 1 lemon (Pro Tip: if you use the juice of 1 lemon, up the amount of powdered sugar for a better ratio and glaze consistency)
1 lemon, zested
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Combine the butter and sugar in a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat until it’s light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beat until incorporated. Add the wet ingredients – ricotta cheese, lemon juice and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.
2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, use an ice cream scooper (or about 2 tablespoons) to spoon the dough on the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, edges should be slightly golden. Let the cookies cool for about 15 minutes.
3. Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in a bowl. Give it a good stir until it’s smooth and creamy. Put a spoonful on the top of each cooled cookie, spread it around the whole cookie with the back of the spoon. Let the glaze harden (about 2 hours or overnight). Keep the cookies in an air-tight container.
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Recipe from laurenslatest.com
Yield: Makes 2 dozen
Ingredients
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets* or line with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.
3. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
4. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.
Garden loot and our view into our neighbor's garden