Ginger Ricotta Cookies (w/corn meal)

Last week, while laying on the beach, we had a long discussion about family favorites. Lemon ricotta cookies came up. And I've been dreaming of them ever since.  After pining over them for a few days, I decided to try my hand at making a gluten free version. What I ended up with were some VERY delicious ginger ricotta cookies, with nearly the same texture as their lemony counterparts and no gluten!  Here's the recipe if you want to try them out... (You could definitely do this with just regular flour instead of gluten free, since I based it off the recipe I got from mom. In fact, all I really did was half the recipe, since I didn't have an entire pound of ricotta, and  change up the flour types and amount of sugar.)



Ingredients:
1/2 stick margarine, softened
1/2 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup King Arthur gluten free all purpose flour
1/2 cup fine grind cornmeal
1.5 heaping teaspoons baking powder
dash salt
3/4 cup ricotta
1 heaping tablespoon ginger preserves (probably closer to 2T in reality, maybe even more)

Directions:

• Cream butter, margarine, and sugar. 
• In a separate bowl combine flour, cornmeal, and baking powder. 
• Add dry mixture to creamed sugar/butter mixture. 
• In a third bowl (I'm messy, what can I say) combine ricotta with the ginger preserve (to ensure it gets mixed throughout the cookies). 
• Add ricotta mixture to the other ingredients and mix well. 
• Refrigerate for 2 hours (or overnight).  (I didn't do this and they were fine, but if you don't like the "gritty" texture of cornmeal I'd recommend you refrigerate the dough for a couple hours.  That's really the only way to rehydrate and soften the cornmeal.  
• Using a tablespoon, scoop out enough dough to make a small meatball. Roll it between your hands and place on an ungreased (or parchment lined) cookie sheet. 
• Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes (until the tops start to get little brown specks). Be sure to rotate the pans if you have two in the oven at the same time. 
• If you like icing on top, I would recommend combining confectionary sugar  with orange juice to make a thin icing. 
• Consume heavily (but maybe not as many as I ate... just sayin').