Italy is not only famous for the best Italian sandwiches in the United States. It also has a rich dessert culture brought all the way to the US to make our homes smell like bakeries. The best Italian cookies will make you forget about any other cookies you’ve had before.
Thankfully, we don’t need to innovate to enjoy these Italian cookies! All you have to do is find the ones you like and get a recipe online to get baking. Check out these Italian cookies that will delight your taste buds.
Best Italian Cookies
Italian Wedding Cookies
Italian Wedding Cookies have a melt-in-your-mouth texture similar to Meringue cookies, but they are so much different in taste. These airy and light cookies only need 6 ingredients to bake many batches of nutty and buttery cookies.
These cookies are also known as snowballs or butterballs. They are similar to Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cakes, but they aren’t made with pecans. Italian Wedding Cookies have chopped and ground almonds, making them perfect for any celebratory occasion.
Pizzelle
To make Pizzelle at home, you need a pizzelle maker and only 6 ingredients. With baking powder, eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and Anise or vanilla, you can make the perfect Pizzelle at home.
Most people use the Pizzelle iron these days to make the cookies, but those who like the traditional method, continue to use an iron with engraved plates. A clamp is used to hold the plates together.
These cookies are thin and crisp waffle cookies, and if you add Anise instead of vanilla, you can get the black licorice flavor.
Biscotti or Italian Torcetti Cookies
These cookies are easy to bake at home with a few basic ingredients, including flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, vanilla, cream, and egg yolk. The best thing about Biscotti or Italian Torcetti cookies is the texture—they are soft and crunchy at the same time.
People prefer to have these cookies for breakfast or snack time. You can serve them with coffee, tea, or any other beverage. If you want the best experience with these cookies, try them with a creamy cappuccino.
Italian Ricotta Cookies
These Italian cookies are among the best Italian desserts recipes. It’s also simple to make with a handful of ingredients like all-purpose flour, baking powder, unsalted butter, salt, lemon, granulated sugar, vanilla, ricotta, eggs, powdered sugar, milk, and butter.
Once baked, the cookies look soft and tender, but thanks to the ricotta made of whole milk, there’s plenty of moisture in the cookies. The lemon adds slight zest to the cookies, but overall, they are sweet and delicious.
Cinnamon Walnut Croissant Cookies
The Italian version of Cinnamon Walnut Croissant Cookies is flaky, buttery, and perfect for holiday parties. The dough is made using a sour cream base, so the result resembles mini pastries. However, the inside is filled with nuts, cinnamon, and sugar mixture, which makes them unique.
Those who want to bake these cookies at home can store the sour cream cookie dough for up to a month. You can freeze it by cutting it into separate discs and using cling wrap before placing them in a freezer bag.
Italian Lemon Cookies
Lemon is among the favorite ingredients to use in Italian cookies. If we say that Italians can’t live without lemon in their desserts, that wouldn’t be wrong! These Lemon cookies are made with lemon flavor, and the topping is perfect with a tasty lemon glaze.
If you love zesty cookies, these lemon delights are definitely for you. You only need flour, fresh lemon, salt, cornstarch, butter, and powdered sugar for this recipe.
Italian Almond Cookies
The Italian Almond cookies are also called Ricciarelli. The cookies are chewy and dense and serve as a perfect side for tea or coffee. Ricciarelli or almond cookies are sweet treats from Siena, Italy. They have a strong almond flavor with a chewiness that will make you question your cookie choices of the past!
The cracked surface looks beautiful after these cookies are baked. You can also think of Italian Almond cookies as distant cousins of French macarons, except the recipe of these Italian cookies is less fussy.
Italian Christmas Cookies
The Christmas cookies in Italian cuisine are soft and cakey instead of crispy and crunchy. The texture of Italian Christmas cookies is the same as thick sugar cookies. You should add almond extract to the recipe to make the dough more irresistible in flavor.
When vanilla icing is added to the cookies, it hardens and provides an appealing texture to the cookies. If you are making these cookies at home, you can swap the almond flavor for anise extract, but you’ll need to decrease it to 1/2 teaspoon.
Italian Rainbow Cookies
One look at the Italian Rainbow cookies, and your kids won’t be able to stop themselves from eating all the served pieces. The cookies are not only enticing to the kids; adults love them just as much. The colorful layers of cake with raspberry jam sandwiching them together are perfect for your sweet tooth.
The chocolate coating on the top and bottom adds another sweet flavor to the mix. These rainbow cookies have almond cake as the base.
Italian Anise Cookies
Similar to lemon, Anise is a flavor much loved by Italians in their dessert recipes. The Italian Anise cookies are tender to the touch, with a glaze and sprinkles to complete the look. The Anise cookies are traditional holiday cookies served during holidays for all the guests.
Anise has a slight black licorice flavor, which most people do not like. However, those who’ve tried these cookies swear by their balanced taste.
Classic Italian Sesame Cookies
Reginelle, or Classic Italian Sesame cookies, are sweet, buttery treats with a hint of lemon and toasted sesame seeds. These cookies are part of family recipes in Italy, and people make them in huge batches to store in airtight containers.
Italian bakeries usually have Classic Italian Sesame cookies available alongside rainbow or anise cookies. The store-bought cookies have oil or shortening used to make them. Homemade Classic Italian Sesame cookies are made with butter, which is much better.
Baci Di Dama
Baci Di Dama is an Italian cookie made with dark chocolate sandwiched between two hazelnut cookies. These cookies are a must for a holiday cookie platter. Baci di Dama or Italian Cookies (as they are popularly known), originated in the northwestern region of Italy.
The cookies are made using a lot of roasted hazelnuts. Once they are combined with the chocolate center, it gives off the flavor of Nutella. These cookies have a crunchy texture, but they melt in your mouth with each bite.
Chocolate Spice Cookies
Italian Chocolate Spice cookies are drop cookies with a moist, cake-like texture. The flavor is perfect with nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon that add the ‘Spice’ section to the cookies. They are called drop cookies because the dough is scooped up and dropped as is onto the cookie sheet.
You might have made or tried oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the US. Think of these Italian Chocolate Spice cookies as the same, but with a different flavor.
Italian Almond Cookies by Cooking with Manuela
These classic Italian almond cookies are very easy to make and extremely easy to eat. Intensely nutty and perfectly sweet. Chewy on the inside and slightly crispy on the outside. What more could you want in a cookie?
Summary
The best Italian cookies have a delicious taste that will make you forget about other sweet treats. From soft ricotta cookies to crispy biscotti, you have many cookies to eat. If you love baking, you can easily prepare them at home too.
Italian cookie recipes haven’t changed much in decades. You can replace one ingredient with an alternative, but the recipes mostly remain the same. That’s probably the reason why these cookies are so delicious and irresistible!
Best Italian Cookies – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What Are Italian Rainbow Cookies Made Of?
The Italian Rainbow cookies are made of eggs with separate egg whites and yolks, almond page, sugar, almond extract, salt, butter, raspberry preserves, and food coloring. Semi-sweet chocolate is also added to the top of these cookies.
What Does Anginetti Mean?
Anginetti are Italian Wedding Cookies. They are also called Anise cookies or anisette cookies. You can also make Anginetti using almond flavor or lemon zest or extract. The ones with lemon flavor are Lemon Knot Cookies.
How Do You Eat Italian Cookies?
Italian cookies can be served as snacks with tea, coffee, or Cappuccino. Some Italians prefer to have Italian cookies for breakfast. There’s also a kind that can be consumed with dessert wine, Vin Santo. These cookies are called cantucci.
What Are Florentine Cookies Made Of?
Florentine cookies use almonds or hazelnuts as the nut base, with cherries and citrus as fruits. Cream and melted butter are also included in the recipe. The ingredients combine to make a candy-like base. After the base is baked, you can use melted chocolate to give the finishing touch.
My name is Jay and I started this website to share my love of Deli Food. I am Jewish with Italian ancestry and grandparents who emigrated to the US from Poland, Russia and Turkey. This website is my celebration of the delicious flavors of international deli culture. Please feel free to send me your suggestions and feedback through the contact form.