Orange Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cookies
These Orange Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cookies are easy to make and the flavor combination is delicious! This quick and easy recipe is ideal any time of year and provides nice variety for a Christmas Cookie tray of cookie exchange.
Let’s talk about Ricotta Cookies! If you’ve never had the pleasure of tasting Ricotta Cookies, they are soft and cake like with a light icing glaze on top. The traditional plain Italian Ricotta Cookies typically has a plain glaze with sprinkles.
I have two new variations for you to enjoy. Lemon Ricotta Cookies and these chocolate orange ricotta cookies that I’m sharing from my other blog, Happy Holiday Recipes! You must try all three and let me know which is your favorite!
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Butter – softened at room temperature. I made this batch of cookies during a heat wave, and even with the A/C on, I put the dough in the refrigerator between batches in the oven. If your butter is too soft, the cookies will spread.
- Granulated Sugar
- Ricotta Cheese – full fat Ricotta cheese.
- Mini chocolate chips
- Eggs – use large eggs at room temperature.
- Vanilla Extract – in the cookies and the icing.
- Orange juice/zest – you will need two oranges for this recipe! It is used in both the cookies and the icing. You definitely need fresh oranges for this recipe! Bottled orange juice simply won’t produce the same delicious flavors.
- Powdered sugar
Step by Step Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. I like to bake these cookies one sheet at a time, in the middle rack in the oven. You can easily fit about 20 cookies at a time on a baking sheet, two inches apart.
Start by whisking together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
In large mixing bowl, or bowl from stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This can take anywhere from three to five minutes. The mixture should be light and pale yellow in color.
Next, add in the eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition.
Add in ricotta cheese, vanilla, orange juice and orange zest. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
Add in the dry ingredients in three additions, stirring until well-combined, but do not over mix.
Stir in the chocolate chips, just until combined.
Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon and drop dough, two inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
Bake in 350°F oven for 13 to 15 minutes until bottoms are lightly browned. Transfer to wire cooling racks.
Make the icing: Combine powdered sugar and orange juice and orange zest in a small mixing bowl. You may need to add a little more orange juice or powdered sugar to reach the desired consistency.
Turn cookies upside down and one at a time, dip them right into the icing, allowing the icing to drip for a moment. Twist the cookie and turn upright. Icing will drizzle down the sides.
Place on wire rack with plastic wrap or parchment paper underneath for easy cleanup.
Allow icing to dry 45 minutes to 2 hours. Enjoy!
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Orange Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cookies
- Total Time: 28 minutes
- Yield: 60 cookies
Description
These Orange Chocolate Chip Ricotta Cookies are easy to make and the flavor combination is delicious! This quick and easy recipe is ideal any time of year and provides nice variety for a Christmas Cookie tray of cookie exchange.
Ingredients
Note: you will need two oranges for this recipe. I have separated the out in this list for the cookies/icing.
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3 Tablespoons orange juice, freshly squeezed
Zest from one orange
1 container ricotta cheese, 15 oz.
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup mini chocolate chips
Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar (more if needed)
3 to 5 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (more if needed)
Zest from one orange
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a small mixing bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, or bowl from stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add in ricotta cheese, vanilla, orange juice and orange zest. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
- Add in flour mixture, in three additions stirring until well-combined, but do not over mix.
- Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Use a small cookie scoop, or tablespoon and drop dough two inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
- Bake in 350°F oven for 13 to 15 minutes until bottoms are lightly browned. Transfer baked cookies to wire cooling racks.
- Make the icing: Combine powdered sugar, orange juice and orange zest in small mixing bowl. You may need to add a little more lemon juice or powdered sugar to reach the desired consistency. Stir in ⅛ to ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract to taste.
- Turn the cookies upside down, one at a time, and dip them right into the icing. Allow the icing to drip for a moment, then twist and turn the cookie upright.
- Place on wire rack with plastic wrap underneath for easy cleanup.
- The icing will take about 45 minutes to an hour to dry completely.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven Baked
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 111
- Sugar: 10.9 g
- Sodium: 27.8 mg
- Fat: 3.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.4 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 17.6 g
- Fiber: 0.3 g
- Protein: 1.6 g
- Cholesterol: 16.4 mg
I did make this recipe. I was surprised that the cookies were so big. I would have appreciated more information about the consistency of the icing (maybe a picture) and some information about storing them. I followed the directions and they are ok, very tender … they’re cookies!
Perfect combination of orange and chocolate added to these delicious Ricotta cookies. They went fast in our kitchen!! Thanks
Made these cookies at Christmas time. They were a huge hit. Will be making them again very soon.
Thanks so much for your feedback!
I made these cookies without the chips and not only were they delicious, they were so easy to make. Could be my favorite all time cookie that I’ll make over and over again. I didn’t dip into the icing, I just used a knife and spread over them.
Brenda, thanks so much for your glowing review of this recipe!! I’m thrilled to hear that you enjoyed these cookies!! The Lemon Ricotta are tasty too!
DELICIOUS!!! My husband isn’t a fan of chocolate chips (crazy guy), so I used Craisins instead. Orange and cranberries are great together. The first tray was not glazed and the cookie is sweet enough without it. Might glaze a few to give away. A keeper.
Thanks so much for sharing your Craisin substitute – that is a great idea and I will try that! So happy to hear that you enjoyed these cookies!