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Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Published: August 26, 2018 | Last updated: August 26, 2018 2 Comments

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These Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are lightly sweetened and spiced with cinnamon. Flakey, crisp, and addictive | imagelicious.com #cookies #fallbaking #pumpkin #pumpkinrecipes #russiancookies
These Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are lightly sweetened and spiced with cinnamon. Flakey, crisp, and addictive | imagelicious.com #cookies #fallbaking #pumpkin #pumpkinrecipes #russiancookies

These Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are lightly sweetened and spiced with cinnamon. Flakey, crisp, and addictive. Perfect for fall baking and afternoon snacks! Egg free!

Closeup of a bowl filled with Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

This post contains amazon affiliate links which means that if you purchase something after clicking one of those links, I will receive a small commission.

There are certain recipes that bring back memories of childhood. You bite into a cake and for a second you are five years old, running into the kitchen for an afternoon snack.

You lick a spoon and suddenly your long-forgetten grade school friend laughs and smiles and chases you outside after lunch.

Food is the ultimate time-machine. There’s no need for physics or magic. You just need a smell, a taste and you are transported back.

Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies on a sheet pan and in a bowl. A hand is picking up one cookie and milk is being poured into a cup

These Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are my personal time machine. They aren’t what I grew up eating but they are a variation of a classic Russian recipe for Farmers Cheese Cookies.

These absolutely delicious Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are crisp and flakey out of the oven but then they become soft and caky as they sit. They are spiced with cinnamon and are perfect for all the fall baking. I mean, pumpkin, cinnamon, what else would you want in the fall?

The cookies are only very lightly sweetened. Because there’s so little sugar in these fall cookies, I don’t mind giving one (or sometimes two) of them to my toddler for a snack.

These cookies are also egg-free and relatively healthy (for a cookie)!

Totally addictive! You won’t be able to stop at just one!

These kind of cheese cookies are often called in Russia “Goose feet” which is because of their funny triangular shape.

Closeup of a Pumpkin Ricotta Cookie bitten in half and the flakey texture visible

All the ingredients to make Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

What are the ingredients in Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Traditional recipe for these cookies calls for Farmers Cheese and although it is very readily available in most grocery stores, I chose to use a more common Ricotta to make the cookies more accessible to everyone.

These cookies are also egg-free, so they are great for those who have egg allergies.

You will need:

  • Butter
  • Ricotta
  • Pumpkin purée
  • Cinnamon
  • Flour
  • Baking powder
  • Sugar
Process shot: butter, ricotta, and pumpkin are being mixed together.Process shot: cinnamon is added to pumpkin, ricotta, and butter mixture

How to make Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Making these delicious Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies is easy but a little bit time consuming.

  1. Mix in butter and ricotta with a fork. Great thing about this recipe is that you don’t need to make sure that the butter is ice cold.
  2. Add the pumpkin purée, cinnamon, and mix more.
  3. Add the flour, baking powder and combine.
  4. Knead a couple of times to form a smooth dough.
  5. Roll.
  6. Cut out circles.
  7. Dip into a cinnamon sugar mixture, fold, dip, fold, dip.
  8. Bake.
  9. Enjoy!

Process shot: top down view of the dough being mixed for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Photo of a plate with cinnamon sugar to dip Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies. Other ingredients for the cookies are in the background

Wait, what about sugar in the dough for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies?

It is not a mistake. There’s actually no sugar in the dough!!! Sugar is only used for dipping the cookies before baking.

The resulting cookies are very lightly sweetened! And this is exactly how they are supposed to be!

However, if you cannot fathom cookies that aren’t sweet, feel free do add 1/4 cup sugar to the dough. You might want to add more but I would start with 1/4 cup first.

Process shot: Dough for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies is being turned onto a floured work surface

Process shot: dough for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies is being kneaded by two hands

Ok, talk to me about butter in the dough!

So, I’ve made these cookies with cold butter right from the fridge and with room temperature butter. Both types of cookies taste the same. The difference is in texture.

  • Cold butter creates a more flakey cookie. Similar a bit to pie dough.
  • Room temperature butter creates softer cookie.

You can choose whatever you like. I usually get the butter out of the fridge and let it sit while I measure the rest of the ingredients. This means that the butter gets softened just a little bit so that it’s easy to mix with a fork but it’s still cold enough that it produces a flakey cookie.

Process shot: closeup of a hand sprinkling flour onto a rolling pin

Process shot: hands are rolling out the dough for Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Flour: how much does it weigh?

This is something that I’ve been struggling with since I created my Instant Pot No Knead Dinner Rolls.

For the past four months I’ve been compulsively weighing and measuring my flour. No matter what I do, no matter the weather or humidity, no matter the brand of flour, no matter the measuring cup I use, 1 cup of flour weighs 150-160g for me. ALWAYS!

It is NOT what most websites say. Online measurements say that 1 cup must weigh 120g. I was never able to achieve this!!!

Interestingly enough, I actually googled how much 1 cup of flour should weigh in Russian and all Russian links say that it should weigh 150-160g. Exactly how I measure the flour. Weird?

Another interesting point is that I actually found references in cookbooks to flour weighing 150g for 1 cup. That’s what Anna Olson, who is a Canadian pastry chef, says.

This is all to say that I use 1 cup of flour in my recipe but that cup of flour weighs about 150-160g!

Process shot: hand is shown that is cutting out circles out of the dough with a mason jar

Process shot: rolled out dough for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies with circles cut out of it

Ingredients and variations for Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

  • Butter
    • Make sure you use unsalted butter. It could be either cold (recommended) or room temperature.
  • Ricotta
    • For a more authentic Russian recipe, use Farmers cheese. If the farmers cheese is really firm, you might need to add an egg.
  • Pumpkin Purée
    • It is used to replace an egg, so if  you don’t like pumpkin purée or don’t have it, you can omit it and use 1 egg instead. Make sure to adjust the flour a bit.
  • Cinnamon
    • Cinnamon and pumpkin are a classic combination but you can totally omit it.
  • Flour
    • Make sure to read my comments about the weight vs volume of flour for this recipe.
  • Sugar
    • Sugar is only used for dipping the cookies in and not in the dough. If you like sweeter cookies, add 1/4 cup of sugar to the dough.

Process shot: close up of a circle of dough being dipped into cinnamon sugar

Process shot: Dough is dipped into cinnamon sugar and folded

What to do with leftover pumpkin purée?

  • Pumpkin pretzels
  • Pumpkin Cranberry Fudge
  • Instant Pot Pumpkin Pudding Cake
  • Pumpkin Ricotta Pancakes
  • Vegan Pumpkin Cake
  • Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Scraps of the dough for the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are being re-rolledPumpkin Ricotta Cookies are arranged on the baking sheet

 

Close up of pumpkin ricotta cookies arranged on the baking sheet before baking



And if you love using pumpkin in unusual way, you must purchase my book, The Ultimate One-Pan Oven Cookbook, I have a few recipes with a very unique use of pumpkin.

Another photo of a bowl full of Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

Close up of a small bowl with three pumpkin ricotta cookies

Watch the video to see exactly how to shape and fold the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies. Also, a fun piece of info about the video, even though I am wearing a sweater in it, it was actually about+30C (+86F) that day. Life of a food blogger…

Closeup of a bowl filled with Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies
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Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies

These Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies are lightly sweetened and spiced with cinnamon. Flakey, crisp, and addictive | imagelicious.com #cookies #fallbaking #pumpkin #pumpkinrecipes #russiancookies
Course Dessert
Cuisine Russian
Keyword cookies, dessert, pumpkin
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 30 cookies
Calories 43kcal
Author Julia

Ingredients

Cookie dough

  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter (cold, see note)
  • 3/4 cup ricotta
  • 1/4 cup pumpkin purée
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup flour (and more for rolling)**(see note)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

Cinnamon sugar

  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a large baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
  • While the oven is preheating, make the cookie dough.
  • In a medium bowl, combine the unsalted butter and ricotta, mash together with a fork. If you are using cold butter, the mixture will not be smooth, it is exactly how it's supposed to be.
  • Add the pumpkin purée and cinnamon, mix so that pumpkin is incorporated.
  • Add the flour and baking powder, mix until a dough forms.
  • Turn the dough onto a floured working surface and knead a few times to get it smooth.
  • Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough until it's about 1/4 inch (about 0.5 cm) thick or even a bit thinner. Add flour as needed so that it doesn't stick to the surface.
  • Using a round cookie cutter dipped in flour (or a glass or a mason jar) that is 2.5 inch (about 7 cm) in diameter, cut out round cookies.
  • In a small shallow dish, mix together the sugar and cinnamon for dipping the cookies.
  • Dip each round cookie circle into the cinnamon sugar on one side. 
    Fold in half with the sugar inside.
     Dip the half moon into the cinnamon sugar just on one side. 
    Fold in half with the sugar inside. 
    Finally, dip the resulting triangle into the cinnamon sugar on one side and place on a baking sheet sugar side up.
    See video for the detailed description on how to fold the cookies properly!
  • Repeat with all the cookie circles. Re-roll the leftover dough and repeat.
  • Bake for 30 minutes.

Video

Notes

I prefer to use cold butter as it results in flaky texture of the Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies, however, you need to use a bit of force when combining the cold butter with the ricotta using a fork.
 
You can use room temperature butter to make the process easier, but the texture will be softer and not flakey.
 
Flour: I use 1 cup of flour that weighs 150 g. Not, 120 g. Use enough flour to make a soft and pliable dough that is not sticky!

Nutrition

Calories: 43kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 7mg | Sodium: 5mg | Potassium: 28mg | Vitamin A: 390IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 21mg | Iron: 0.3mg
Tried this recipe?Leave me a comment with a star rating!
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Nutrition Facts
Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies
Amount Per Serving
Calories 43 Calories from Fat 18
% Daily Value*
Fat 2g3%
Saturated Fat 1g5%
Cholesterol 7mg2%
Sodium 5mg0%
Potassium 28mg1%
Carbohydrates 4g1%
Protein 1g2%
Vitamin A 390IU8%
Vitamin C 0.1mg0%
Calcium 21mg2%
Iron 0.3mg2%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
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Filed Under: Cheese, Cookies, Dairy, Dessert, Fall, Recipe, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Video Tagged With: egg-free, Pumpkin

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Instant Pot Pumpkin Fettuccine Alfredo (vegetarian) »

Comments

  1. Andrea says

    November 6, 2019 at 7:23 pm

    I tried this recipe but the cold butter all leaked out of the cookies while in the oven. Not sure what I did wrong. I didn’t leave the dough out at room temperature for long.

    Reply
    • Julia says

      November 6, 2019 at 7:29 pm

      Most likely your oven wasn’t hot enough so instead of baking at high temperature, the butter just melted and leaked out.

      That’s just a guess.

      I make different variations of this recipe often and never had an issue with leaking butter.

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Julia and I love cooking simple, easy, and healthy meals. My favourite meal of the day is breakfast so you'll see many pancakes. Cooking and baking shouldn't be complicated, let me show you how.

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