Italian Christmas Cookie Recipes

In Puglia, cartellata are traditionally made at Christmas by bakers and home cooks alike. The cookies are usually drizzled with honey, but you can also sprinkle them with lemon zest and cinnamon sugar. 

These crunchy-chewy cookies, sold at bakeries all over Lazio, are called brutti ma buoni in Italian, or “ugly but good.” The name pretty much says it all. 

This chocolaty version of the chewy Italian almond cookie calls for rich Pernigotti cocoa powder, which has a higher fat content than most. 

Chef Kevin Sbraga varies these wonderful nutty biscotti, sometimes dipping them in melted dark chocolate for an extra layer of flavor. 

These hard-crunch cookies are meant for dunking in espresso or Vin Santo.

In Tuscany, cantucci di Prato—miniature, anise-flavored almond biscotti—are traditionally served at the end of a meal with a glass of Tuscan dessert wine for dipping. They’re also great with tea. 

There’s no use lying about whether you’ve eaten these crisp anise-flavored cookies, called bugie in Italian: The dusting of the confectioner’s sugar, which inevitably lands on your clothes, will give you away. 

These vanilla-scented cookies are shaped like mezzaluna (“half moon”) pasta and filled with a mixed-berry jam. 

While the names for amaretti cookies and amaro digestif both derive from the Italian word for bitter, amaretti are traditionally made with bitter almonds, while amaro gets its edge from roots, barks and other aromatics. Here, the two come together into a deliciously chewy cookie.