Cookies Fit for the Man Who Saved Me from Certain Death

Last week, I had a bit of excitement. I pulled into work and realized that one of my tires was completely flat. Completely. Flatter than the line that registered how dead Jack Bauer was in the middle of Season 2 of 24 after he’s repeatedly tasered by terrorists. There was no way I could drive on it.

Lucky for me, a gentleman at the office offered to change it. His name is Tavis, and he’s just an all-around nice guy. He also for whatever reason has always reminded me of Tony Almeida from 24.

I’ve never had a flat before, so to have someone help me in this situation was a really big deal. I particularly appreciated Tavis’s good deed that afternoon, as he was on his way to a three-hour meeting, but insisted on changing the tire first, thinking it might be dark by the time his meeting was over.

I felt horrible about putting him out: “Tavis, you totally don’t have time to change my tire right now!” I said.

But Tavis pulled out his gun and CTU badge and said:
Do you see what I did there? The cookie is supposed to be Tony Almeida.

I knew what Tavis’s good deed deserved: the most delicious cookie in the whole wide world, The Ricotta Cookie, henceforward known as Tavis’s Ricotta Cookie. It’s wonderful: the ricotta adds moistness, the icing has a hint of almond extract—they also taste great right out of the freezer.

I found the recipe on allrecipes.com (it was submitted by “Sandy” – go, Sandy!), and upon baking my very first batch a few months ago, this little cookie instantly commandeered position of my previous favorite cookie in the whole world, “The Lil Bite of Heaven” (I’ll post a recipe for Lil Bites in a week or so – it’s an excellent, festive cookie, perfect for the holidays).

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make Tavis’s Ricotta Cookies (yields 96 cookies).
For the cookie: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and in a medium bowl cream together: ½ pound of softened butter, 1 ¾ cup white sugar, 2 eggs, 15 ounces of ricotta cheese, and 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, combine 4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda. Blend into the creamed mixture.

The next step says to roll the dough into teaspoon-sized balls, and arrange on an ungreased cookie sheet, but the dough is hard to work with at this point. It’s a little sticky:
Instead, roll up the dough in a few pieces of plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or so.
It’ll make it much easier to get to this point:
Bake each sheet 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned.

For the topping: In a small bowl, beat 5 tablespoons milk, 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, and 1 teaspoon almond extract until smooth. Spoon the mixture over the warm cookies, and add colored candy sprinkles.
And voila! Check out these manly cookies:
Thanks Tavis for your help last week. It was deeply appreciated.