Orange Ricotta Cookies

Week 513, and the dark arriving early, the kitchen warm against the cold, the soups simmering, the bread rising. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Back to school; Ethan middle school; Hannah kindergarten; four rugelach deliveries. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made rugelach and challah this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The rugelach went out the door four times this week — to the grandchildren, to the neighbors, to the people who needed something from my kitchen even if they couldn’t say so — and when the last of them was gone I still had the itch, the need to make something soft and bright and shareable, something that carried the orange smell of a hopeful morning. These Orange Ricotta Cookies are not rugelach, but they are cousins in spirit: tender from the cheese, fragrant from the zest, glazed the way everything worth giving deserves to be glazed. I made a full batch, and I will bring half to Cedarhurst, because the chain does not break, and the chain is always, in some form, something baked.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 44 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
15 oz whole-milk ricotta cheese
3 tbsp fresh orange juice, divided
2 tbsp orange zest, divided
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (for glaze)
Colored sprinkles or additional zest, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Preheat & prep. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add wet ingredients. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the ricotta, 2 tablespoons of the orange juice, 1 tablespoon of the orange zest, and the vanilla extract. Mix until smooth and well combined.
Combine. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, stirring just until a soft, slightly sticky dough forms. Do not overmix.
Portion & bake. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake for 13–15 minutes, until the bottoms are just golden and the tops are set but still pale. Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, remaining 1 tablespoon orange juice, and remaining 1 tablespoon orange zest until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, add orange juice a teaspoon at a time.
Glaze & finish. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of glaze over each cooled cookie, spreading gently. Add sprinkles or a pinch of extra zest if desired. Allow the glaze to set for 15 minutes before stacking or packing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange Ricotta Cookies — The Chain That Does Not Break