#2,040: Ricotta Cheese Cookies

For the past 2 years, my daughter needed to bring cookies for a cookie exchange to her religious ed class.  I needed to find recipes that were nut free, didn't use a ton of ingredients, and were easy enough for her to do by herself so that I didn't have an extra "to-do" list item on my own busy schedule!  I found this recipe which not only required getting some ricotta cheese (everything else I had on hand), but also claimed to make 100 cookies, so I knew we'd have plenty for a cookie exchange.  I got all of the ingredients ready for her and set her out to make these herself! 

These were really easy to make, but we only got about 60 out of these, compared to the 100 that the recipe claims to make.  I also did not heat up the milk and powder sugar mixture, as I figured it would be harder for my kids to frost on their own.  Plus, I didn't think heating it up would make that much of a difference to just stirring it together cold.    

We were definitely fans of these cookies though.  They aren't my favorite Christmas cookie, but I would certainly eat and make these again. 

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

1 (15 ounce) container of ricotta cheese

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 cups all-purpose flour

For the glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

milk
I also added a little bit of lemon juice to the mixture

sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix all of the cookie ingredients well until the dough sticks together into a big ball. It will be sticky. Drop by teaspoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until the bottoms turn golden brown. Let cool for 1 minute and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

In a small saucepan slowly stir milk into the powdered sugar until it creates a glaze thin enough to be spread over the cookies. Stir over low heat then spread over cooled cookies. Quickly top with sprinkles.