Gluten-free Lemon Ricotta Cookies

These delicious and light lemon ricotta cookies are made with gluten-free flours, ghee, fresh lemon juice and almond milk ricotta cheese!

gluten-free dairy-free lemon ricotta cookies made with Kite Hill vegan ricotta

Gluten-Free Lemon Ricotta Cookies

These gluten-free lemon ricotta cookies are made with Kite Hill Almond Milk Ricotta Cheese and a blend of gluten free flours.  

They are light and fluffy with a little sweet, lemony tang from the glaze.  

It was my first swing at this recipe and I’m super excited about how they turned out.

I originally bought the ricotta to use in a baked ziti dish but changed the recipe at the last minute and used a cheesy béchamel sauce instead to make baked penne with bison.  

So I had a container of this almond based ricotta cheese and didn’t want it to go to waste.  So I thought why not make cookies!  

We like sweet treats sometimes, like these amazing puff pastry beignets.  And chocolate sweet potato brownies.

So for these lemon ricotta cookies, I used the fabulous Giada’s recipe for lemon ricotta cookies with lemon glaze as a starting point.

The Kite Hill Ricotta comes in an 8 ounce container instead of the typical 15 ounce ricotta containers so I just cut her recipe in half.  

Then I had to decide which gluten free flours to use.  Because I wanted the cookies to be lighter, I choose sweet white rice flour, tapioca and potato starch.

And we’ve also started using organic cane sugar from Wholesome in our baking.  It is a finer crystal than the raw cane turbinado sugar that I particularly like for sprinkle on top of cookies and muffins.

I used an ice cream scoop to transfer the cookie dough onto parchment paper placed onto a cookie sheet.  When I baked the first batch, I noticed that they did not change shape.  So I flattened the cookies in the second batch.  

But the ball form cookies actually had a slightly nicer texture.  The batter made 28 cookies using a 1 1/2-inch scooper.

The Glaze

At first I wasn’t going to add the lemon glaze, but they aren’t very sweet.

So I went ahead and added a few squeezes of lemon juice to a few tablespoons of powered sugar to make a kind of a glaze and spooned just a little bit onto each cookie.

 It absorbed into the cookie instead of creating a hard shell.  They were really delicious, light and fluffy!  Yay.SaveSave

copy cat Samoas cookies

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Lemon Ricotta Cookies | Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free

These delicious and light lemon ricotta cookies are made with gluten-free flours, ghee, fresh lemon juice and almond milk ricotta cheese!

Course Dessert
Cuisine Italian
Keyword cookies, diary-free ricotta, lemon ricotta cookies
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 28
Author Deana Larkin Evans

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup sweet white rice flour
  • 1/4 cup tapioca flour
  • 1/4 cup potato starch
  • 1 tsp guar gum
  • 1/2 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup organic cane sugar
  • 1/4 cup ghee, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 8 oz Kite Hill Almond Milk Ricotta
  • 1 1/2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • lemon zest
  • raw cane turbinado sugar for sprinkling

For the Glaze

  • 1/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 1-2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Mix together the flours, guar gum, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

  3. In a stand alone mixer or large bowl, beat together the softened ghee and organic cane sugar. Once that is nice and creamy – add the egg, then the ricotta cheese and lastly the lemon juice and zest. Mix until well combined.

  4. Now add the dry ingredients and beat until everything is well-combined.

  5. Use an ice cream scooper or spoon to transfer the cookie dough to the baking sheets. If you would like, sprinkle with a little raw cane turbinado sugar. Then bake for about 15 minutes (I prefer to cook only one baking sheet at a time). Transfer the cookies and parchment paper to a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

  6. Mix together the powdered sugar and lemon juice. Spoon a little over each of the cookies and let absorb into the cookie.

Recipe Notes

Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

Deana Larkin Evans

You get one life - do your best to ENJOY IT! So hi, I'm Deana. This food blog is all about cooking wholesome real food and developing gluten-free recipes for some of our favorite comfort foods. I had to start eating gluten-free in 2010, then cut dairy and casein (except for the occasional Parmesan) in 2014. We learned A2 casein (goat, sheep and buffalo milk) is easier to digest than the predominate A1 form in cow milk. So we brought back goat milk dairy into our recipes in 2016. Thank goodness, right! So I'm kind of a science nerd, too. In the '90s, I earned an undergrad degree in biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. Hook 'em! Then followed up with a PhD in biochemistry and a law degree from the University of Houston. I recently earned a certificate in genomics/sequence analysis from Johns Hopkins University, where I also took a very cool food microbiology course. Currently, I'm learning about the microbiome and gut health. And trying to come up with healthy recipes to feed those gut bugs! #feedthegutbugs

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