Cookie Carnival: Lemon Ricotta Cookies

This is my first post for the Cookie Carnival, hosted every month by Kate over at The Clean Plate Club. This month we were allowed to vote for which cookies we wanted to make. The winning recipe was Lemon Ricotta Cookies. I didn't vote for these, but when I found out they were the winner I knew Josh would be excited. He's crazy about lemon desserts. This particular recipe comes from FoodNetwork.com. Reading the reviews, I noticed everyone said these were a cake-like cookie. I'm not a fan of cake-like cookies........ UNLESS!! Unless they're smashed together with fluffy, creamy frosting in the middle... You see where I'm going with this?? Whoopie pies, people, WHOOPIE PIES!!?! My dad is crazy about whoopie pies. He's always asking me to make them. So this week for wing night, I made a dessert that satisfies the two most important men in my life!
These lemon ricotta cookies whoopie pies are fabulous! The cookie is definitely cake-like. It's moist and the lemon flavor is excellent. The frosting in the middle is a cooked flour frosting (my 2nd favorite frosting after SMBC). It's creamy and fluffy and lemony and PERFECT! These whoopie pies will satisfy any lemon lover!

Lemon Ricotta Cookies w/ Lemon Glaze (I omitted the glaze and sandwiched the cookies with Cooked Lemon Frosting, recipe below)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested

Glaze:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl combine the butter and the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie) onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes.

Glaze:
Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Spoon about 1/2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours. Pack the cookies into a decorative container.


Cooked Lemon Frosting
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, soft but cool
Zest of 1 large lemon
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Whisk together sugar, flour, milk, and cream in a saucepan. Boil over medium heat until mixture becomes extremely thick like glue, about 15-20 minutes. Whisk frequently to prevent burning.

When mixture has thickened, pour it into the bowl of an electric mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat on medium-high speed until mixture cools to room temperature, about 15 minutes (test it by touching it with the back of your hand or wrist). Add the soft but cool butter a few tablespoons at a time. When all the butter has been added, increase speed to high. The frosting will look too soft at first, but it will thicken after about 3-5 minutes on high speed. Stir in lemon zest and lemon juice.

Red Hot Velvet Cupcakes w/ Boiled Buttercream Frosting

Ladies and gentlemen... Search no more! I have found the red velvet cake recipe to end all red velvet cake recipes!! I'm serious! I was so excited to post about it I didn't even finish cleaning up the kitchen! The recipe comes from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. It's for their Red Hot Velvet Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream. I've been wanting to make a cooked flour frosting for a while now, because it's what a lot of folks consider to be the "correct" frosting for red velvet cake. Oohhh I'm so glad I made it! I left out the cinnamon and made it plain vanilla. WOW! It tastes almost like pastry cream, but the consistency is almost identical to Swiss meringue buttercream! I cut back on the butter just a bit (cuz that's just my thang). It was perfect! In my opinion, this frosting suits red velvet cake much better than cream cheese. Red velvet has such a mild chocolate flavor that cream cheese overpowers it. The cupcake itself is moist, tender, and not-too-fluffy/not-too-dense. It's seriously perfect. This is the perfect cupcake! I bet it tastes great in layer cake form too!

Mmmm cuppies cooling... While making the frosting, it kinda goes through stages. Halfway through it's gonna look like sweetened condensed milk (cuz that's basically what it is). When it's ready it'll be like a scary swamp monster!

Cuppie wants to be a layer cake when he grows up! Who's gonna eat all these???
ME!!

I got the original recipe from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. I roughly halved the cake recipe and VERY roughly decreased the frosting to 2/3. I say "roughly" because I rounded all of my calculations up. It made 12 cupcakes and the perfect amount of frosting! I'll post my rough conversions in orange italics.
PS: If you compare this to Chockylit's recipe, you'll see that it is very similar. Most differences are very miniscule. The biggest differences are 1 less egg in Chockylit's and the inclusion of shortening in the Baked version.

RED HOT VELVET CAKE WITH CINNAMON BUTTERCREAM
Yield: 1 (8-INCH) CAKE (1/2 recipe = 12 cupcakes)
FOR THE RED HOT VELVET CAKE LAYERS
1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder (2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons red gel food coloring 1 tablespoon
1/4 cup boiling water (2 tablespoons)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, cut into small pieces (3 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, at room temperature (1 tablespoon)
1 2/3 cups sugar (3/4 cup)
3 large eggs (2 eggs)
1 cup buttermilk (1/2 cup [I used water and buttermilk powder])
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon)
2 1/2 cups cake flour (1 1/4 cups)
1 teaspoon fine salt (1/2 teaspoon)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar (1/2 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon baking soda (1/2 teaspoon)

FOR THE CINNAMON FROSTING (approximately 2/3 recipe)
1 1/2 cups sugar (1 cup)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (3 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups milk (1 cup)
1/4 cup heavy cream (3 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into small pieces (3/4 cup [1 1/2 sticks] This is less than 2/3 of the recipe)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon)
2 teaspoons cinnamon (I omitted)
Red Hots (cinnamon imperials) candies, for decoration

MAKE THE RED HOT VELVET CAKE LAYERS
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper, and butter the parchment (or line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners) . Dust with flour, and knock out the excess flour.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder, food coloring, and boiling water. Set aside to cool. (This is to "bloom" the cocoa powder, which enhances the flavor. Don't skip this step.)

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and shortening until smooth. Scrape down the bowl and add the sugar. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Stir the buttermilk and vanilla into the cooled cocoa mixture.

Sift the flour and salt together into another medium bowl (Pay attention here! I almost added the baking soda. It comes in later...). With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture, alternating with the cocoa mixture, to the egg mixture in three separate additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until incorporated.

In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda and stir until the baking soda dissolves; the mixture will fizz. Add to the batter and stir until just combined. (If anyone can offer any insight as to what affect this has on the cake versus just sifting the soda in with the flour mixture, I'm curious...)

Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes (15-18 minutes for cupcakes), rotating the pans halfway through the baking time. Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes (Cool cupcakes in pan on wire rack 5 minutes; Remove from pan and finish cooling on wire rack). Invert the cakes onto the rack, remove the pans, and let cool completely. Remove the parchment.

MAKE THE CINNAMON FROSTING
In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar and flour together. (Most recipes I've seen like this don't add the sugar to this mixture. By cooking the sugar with the milk, it dissolves it and prevents the grainy taste most people complain about.) Add the milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil and has thickened, about 20 minutes (It will look like VERY thick glue when it's ready) .

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until cool (I let mine cool in the fridge, but just until room temp). Reduce the speed to low and add the butter; beat until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and cinnamon and continue mixing until combined. If the frosting is too soft, transfer the bowl to the refrigerator to chill slightly: then beat again until it is the proper consistency. If the frosting is too firm, place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat with a wooden spoon until it is the proper consistency.

Overall rating on a scale of 1-5
Moistness: 5!!
Tenderness: 5!!(Before being refrigerated)
Frosting: 5!!