Several years ago, I had some leftover ricotta cheese and whole milk from a cheese cake recipe that I'd baked. This is the cookie that came out of those ingredients.

Orange Ricotta Cheese Cookies with Raspberry filling

Leftovers lead to experimentation that leads to... cookies! I had a half a container of ricotta cheese and just over a half cup of whole milk in the refrigerator that were reaching their expiration dates. Why not substitute them for the butter I always use?

These are nice light, almost fluffy cookies, that MUST sit in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours before you try to cut the dough!

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup whole milk or heavy cream
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• all the zest from a large orange
• all the juice of that orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 small jar of raspberry jam

Construction:

1. Cream the ricotta cheese, milk, both sugars, and the orange zest
2. Add the vanilla and orange juice
3. Mix in the flour and baking soda
4. Split the dough into two equal sections and roll into logs around around 2" thick. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.
5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper
6. Cut the dough logs into segments around 1/2" thick and place with lots of room on the baking sheets. These cookies will spread.
7. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until the cookies start to brown on the edges.
8. When the cookies have fully cooled, spread some raspberry jam on one and use a second one to make a sandwich. Store these in the refrigerator.

Ricky, those look interesting. You are the cookie king, Thank you for sharing, I'm putting them on the to-try list.

Cool! Thanks. I used to make fried lemon ricotta balls. ;) Obviously different, but also Italian. Different from what I had in mind, but worth a try. Same direction as Ricky's, also worth a try.

I posted and it disappeared into the ether. I'm reading that it might be because I posted a link, so again, briefly, without the link:

I've made ricotta cookies and that's not at all what I'm envisioning with your description. In fact, what you describe sounds pretty good and I may do a test run gluten-free version. I would start with this recipe at the link I am not providing... it is at "bake it with love dot com" slash "vanilla dash crinkle dash cookies" slash. lol! I'd probably start by sub'ing cream cheese for half the butter in the recipe, then I'd add the lemon flavor with juice, extract, or rind, per your memory and tastes. I'd coat with sugar crystals rather than powdered sugar, and bake it up for a test run.

PM, that sounds interesting! Assuming I typed it right, I was having trouble with that website. Might be because of my device. I landed in an index page, not the recipe, and went through some nested links, since the search didn't work.... Did you see? There's a recipe called Lemon Cream Cheese Crinkle Cookie! (Or something close to that.) So I tried my recipe app, and I was able to get the lemon one, though not the vanilla, so I wonder if its page has issues which led to the link being blocked.

See if this link to the lemon works:

https://bakeitwithlove.com/lemon-cream-cheese-crinkle-cookies/#recipe

Then I also found her guide to crinkle cookies, which included a definition. I've made cookies ages ago with similar method, probably before ”crinkle” was used a lot. When I've read posted crinkle cookies, the recipes just sounded like cookies, and the appearance, which people said was the ”crinkle” looked like cookies, so now I undestand what sets them apart. Thank-you! From bakeitwithlove.com: ”How Do Crinkle Cookies Get Their Appearance? Crinkle cookies are adorned with beautiful crackles, created from gaps between the powdered sugar coating. This appearance is achieved solely from the amount of rise and spread that happens in the oven while baking. The cracks are the result of the outside of the cookie drying and setting before the inside does, causing the continued expansion to make it crack.”

The bakery which made the ”cheesecake cookies” had a whole bunch of different sugars. It dawns on me now, why. They don't have visible powdered sugar on top, which wouldn't travel well, and do have larger crystal sugar which crunches nicely. The above defininition explains exactly how they are though, with the nice thin crusty feeling on the outside. I totally believe the drying thing, plus what the melted sugar on the outside would do. Crinkle must be the methodology!

I have to cook vegetables. Sigh. But when I can take a break in the kitchen from things nutritious, I will be trying these. Thanks, again, PM!

Interestingly, I can't edit the above. Link troubles? I wanted to add the part I missed copying to the definition, the direction to ”Roll each dough ball in the granulated white sugar, then confectioners sugar, and place on the baking sheets about 2 inches apart.”

@plllog, I've made those Lemon crinkle cookies several times. First, they're much better with Lime and Key Lime Juice. Second, regardless what crinkle cookie recipe you bake, you MUST get the batter ice cold for really good crinkles.

Thanks for the advice, Ricky!

@party_music50, The original cookies cookies have been in the freezer, and got down to one which had a blob of powdered sugar on it, proving your theorem that it was indeed a crinkle cookie, in the vein of the one you posted! Thanks again for your suggestion!

I like a recipe I cut from a women’s magazine decades ago. They are tiny cheesecakes baked in muffin tins. I refrigerate them and serve them as cookies.

Sheila, that sounds like Little Bits that were in Southern Living. They are a family staple. I was so disappointed the first time I made them. I thought they weren’t very good, but they were warm and the original recipe said to serve chilled. Once they were chilled, they were fantastic!

https://www.food.com/recipe/little-bits-323255

There's no picture. Are they flat like cookies? Or tall like cheesecake? I have a mini-cheesecake pan, but have never used it for anything like actual cheesecakes. Do you think this recipe would work? Or does it really want a muffin tin?

@plllog mine are exactly the size of a mini muffin. I have 4 (or more) mini muffin tins expressly for making Little Bits. The Little Bits puff a little bit (🙄) then fall. The topping goes in the depression made when they fall. They are the equivalent of a one or two bite cheesecake.

They are just as BB describes. if you want a small cheesecake, cut a recipe to a fourth.

Let's say I'm intrigued. First, there are the crinkle cookies to be tackled. ;) But the mini-cheesecke pan has spaces maybe the size of a quarter to half dollar. They're straight sided and have loose bottoms. I also have heart and pumpkin shaped ones, which are profgessively a little larger. I use them for interesting things, but haven't tried an actual cheesecake. This might be the right first toe in the water.