Italian Butter Cookies

No ratings yet

Make these delicious Italian butter cookies quickly and easily using only a few simple ingredients and 20 minutes of hands-on time. I have to warn you, they'll be gone even faster!

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Resting Time45

Total Time1 10

Course: Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: cookies

Calories: 111kcal

Author: Svi

Ingredients

Classic Dough

225 grams butter , 8 ounces
150 grams powdered sugar , 5.4 ounces
2 eggs , 100 grams or 3.4 ounces
350 grams flour , 12.5 ounces
25 grams corn starch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt

Chocolate Dough

225 grams butter , 8 ounces
150 grams powdered sugar , 5.4 ounces
2 eggs , 100 grams or 3.4 ounces
350 grams flour , 12.5 ounces
25 grams unsweetened dark cocoa powder
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt

Decoration

Dark melted chocolate + white melted chocolate
Red candied cherries
Sugar sprinkles
Shredded coconut
Finely chopped hazelnuts
Whole almonds , hazelnuts or walnut halves
Apricot jam , or other jam of your choice
Powdered sugar

Instructions

Prepare cookie dough

In a stand mixer bowl with a whisk attachment, add butter softened at room temperature (NOT melted) and powdered sugar. Beat on medium speed until it becomes fluffy and pale in color.
Add eggs, salt and vanilla extract and continue beating for a few more minutes until you get a fluffy airy batter.
Add sieved flour and cornstarch in 3 goes. Beat shortly, just enough to mix all the ingredients into a uniform dough. Substitute cornstarch with cocoa powder when making chocolate butter cookies.
As a final result, you should have the dough stiff enough to hold the shape but still soft enough to be piped with a pastry bag.
Transfer the dough to a pastry bag. It’s best to do it in two or three batches to avoid filling the pastry bag to much since it’ll make it harder to pipe.

Pipe cookies and let rest in the fridge

Using a ½ inch open star tip and ½ inch french star tip pipe cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (see cookie shapes section for details).
Place tray with piped cookies in the fridge for 45-60 minutes before baking,

Bake

Bake in a preheated to 350 F (175 C) oven for about 15 minutes.
Let cool completely and decorate further (see notes).

Notes

See the Step By Step Pictures for a visual walk-through of the recipe.

Use a kitchen scale to measure all ingredients in grams for the best result!

Pastry Tips I Used:

Cookie Shapes

Straight elongated cookie - using a french star tip. Decorate after baking. Dip one end in melted chocolate, decorated with sugar sprinkles.
Flower shape - closed star tip. decorate with candied cherries before baking.
S -shape - using an open star tip. Decorated with melted chocolate after baking.
Horseshoe - open star tip. Decorator after baking. Dip the ends in dark chocolate and dust with coconut.
Rose - open star tip. Pipe making a circle with minimal gap in the center. Decorate before baking. Slightly press your finger in the middle and put a small dollop of apricot jam.
Circle shape with a whole in the in the middle - using an open star tip. Decorate after baking with powdered sugar.
Heart shape bicolor - using an open star tip.
Cookie sandwich - spread flat side of one cookie with chocolate/hazelnut spread and sandwich together with another cookie.

Top Tips

All ingredients should be at room temperature including eggs to have the best, easy to work-with consistency of the dough.
Use robust pastry bag to avoid breakage. Cloth or silicone are the best.
To prevent parchment paper from sliding on the baking sheet brush the baking sheet with water or pipe a small amount of cookie dough in four corners to help the parchment paper stick.
Let the cookies chill in the fridge so that maintain their shape in the oven.

Nutrition