Glazed Ricotta Orange Cookies

Glazed ricotta orange cookies stacked sitting a piece of parchment paper.

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5 from 1 vote

Cardamom adds warmth to these classic, soft ricotta cookies.

Prep Time20

Total Bake Time48

Total Time1 8

Course: Cookies

Cuisine: Italian

Difficulty: Medium

Servings: cookies

Calories: 168kcal

Ingredients

COOKIES

½ cup (113.5 g) Butter unsalted room temperature
1 ½ cups (300 g) Sugar white
1 Tablespoon (1 Tablespoon) Orange zest
2 (2) Eggs
2 Tablespoon (2 Tablespoon) Orange juice
¼ teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) Orange Extract
¾ teaspoon (0.75 teaspoon) Vanilla Extract
15 oz (453.59 g) Ricotta cheese
3 cups (375 g) All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Baking powder
½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) Kosher Salt
½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) Ground cardamom
1 Tablespoon (1 Tablespoon) Poppy seeds

GLAZE

2 ¼ cups (270 g) Powdered sugar
4 ½ Tablespoon (4.5 Tablespoon) Orange juice
¾ teaspoon (0.75 teaspoon) Vanilla bean paste

Instructions

Making Cookies

Turn on the oven and preheat to 350°F (175°C or 180°C). Line 2 cookie pans with parchment paper or a silicone mat and set them aside. Zest and juice one orange into small bowls. Set both of these bowls aside. Weigh or measure the sugar and add the orange zest to the sugar. Mix by hand until the sugar is moist from the orange zest, then set this bowl aside.
Next, weigh or measure your flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom, and poppy seed into a medium bowl and whisk them together. You want to make sure you get the poppy seeds throughout the dry ingredients. Set the bowl aside.
In a stand or hand-held mixer, add the softened unsalted butter and orange zest sugar mixture and blend on medium-high speed until the butter is mixed well. I let it mix for at least 3 minutes; you want the sugar blended into the butter as much as possible. If you do not get the sugar incorporated into the butter, you could have a few cookies that bake flat.
Add your eggs one at a time. Then, add the vanilla extract, orange extract, ricotta, and orange juice, blending until incorporated. Next, turn the mixer down to a low speed, slowly adding the flour mixture. Mix until all the flour is incorporated. This cookie dough is soft but can still hold a shape.
Take your parchment (or silicone mat) lined cookie pan and scoop out twelve mounds using a medium cookie scoop. You can spoon drop by using a teaspoon, but I get more uniform-sized cookies using a cookie scoop. Bake at 350°F (175°C or 180°C) for 16-18 minutes. After baking, move cookies to a cooling rack.

Orange Glaze

Add the powdered sugar, orange juice, and vanilla bean paste into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add 1 teaspoon on top of each cooled cookie and spread it around with the backside of the teaspoon. Let them sit until the glaze sets. I let mine sit for about 45 minutes before moving them to a container.

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