Ricotta Scoop Cookie – Easy and Gluten-Free

Ricotta scoop cookie batter turns into these delicious bite-sized almond flour cookies.

These intentionally rustic baked ricotta cookies are zhughed with melted with white chocolate and festive sprinkles.

Aren’t they cute?

They’re cute-as-a-button cookies.

They’re also gluten-free healthy and this could be your new Italian Christmas cookie to share. They’re 5-minute easy to prepare for the oven. And then decked-out all-in ready for the holidays within 20 minutes! All in the time it would have taken for you to wait for your pan of cookies to cool rest in your fridge.

With the recipe below, you don’t need to wait. 😊

Oh, and if ricotta isn’t in your house, you can use a thicker and healthier Greek yogurt substitute instead like I did with this pre-baked cookie pan when I made these cookies a 2nd time.

I timed myself and it took me less than 60 seconds to cookie scoop these out. And that was a relaxing, no-stress pace for me as I’m into slower (and balanced) living.

So yeah, I’ll win no points for fastest bakes as I’m usually in the kitchen for 2-5 hours on baking days… but maybe 🤔 with this scooper tool (that I’ve had in my drawer since I attended Pampered Chef party days)… this changes everything!

Plus, I never aim for perfect because that’s anything but relaxed. And these are perfectly imperfect. The scooper helps to make them just perfect enough.

…That’s how great a scooper tool is! It’s one of my favorite baking tools that comes in handy for scooping out cookie batter and dropping the cookies on the pan in one fell-sweep.

I couldn’t do without it for cookies, melon fruit, and so much more in the kitchen.

And if you don’t have a cookie scoop tool, use a half round tablespoon. It will be almost as easy.

Either way, if you were to use a cookie cutter or cookie stamper (for cutouts), it would take you a lot longer to roll out the dough… then transfer the delicate cookie dough shapes to the cookie pan. Plus, add all the waiting cool fridge time for optimized cookies. That’s al least half an hour.

…BUT, since I used healthy light olive oil (instead of butter) and the cookie scooper for these cookie scoops, you don’t even need to refrigerate the cookie pan before baking. ‼️

(Relax and healthy points won 😊).

Healthy Olive Oil For A Scoop Cookie 

And when you use a healthy oil like a lemon or light extra virgin olive oil, then you have a more healthy cookie.

That’s something to be excited about and one that’s good on a Mediterranean diet.

And another Mediterranean-ish ingredient-add to these cookies is the ricotta cheese or yogurt.

This takes a simple-flavor cookie to a whole ‘nother elevated level.

…And a citrus zest lifts up the cookies to an even brighter level.

You can use lemon, lime, or orange also good on a healthy Mediterranean diet.

And using healthy flours…

Gluten-free  almond flour is perfect for a cookie where crunch is more important than rise. You can see the delicious browned bits that are still attached to the cookie.

Getting back to basics, you only need 2 ingredients to make a basic cookie (and these ricotta scoop cookie recipe)… that’s flour and neutral oil.

You can add the sweet after if you wanted to but I like to add a little raw honey as healthy sweets. It complements the almond flour. And if you want to lean into almond flavors, add a 1/2 tsp of almond extract.

When dry and wet ingredients meet, then you have a cookie dough forming.

Then for the creme-de-la-creme finale, you could glaze your ricotta scoop cookie with almond-y vanilla flavors (with a tiny bit of powdered sugar) or for lower sugar, these are topped with melted white chocolate that adds a sweet glaze… like glistening snow.

A little dab or drizzle will do.

Then I do a zhugh dance to decorate.

I couldn’t resist the old-fashioned happy sprinkles that there’s no substitute for. 🥳

Rainbow confetti for a birthday or the red and green ones that celebrate a Christmas birthday bring some fun.

…You see where this is going.

And you can always use ground nuts and/or spices that would be a tasty and healthy choice for any occasion.

They can be energy bites you can take along with you on your adventures.

Or you can decorate them on a plate for Christmas holiday tables… or for celebration year-round. 🎉 Ready to enjoy these?