No dessert table should be without these Italian Cookies! These are the type of cookies you’d find in an Italian Bakery, not overly sweet, but with a great glaze on top. Impress your friends and family with these great cut out cookies.
This recipe has both conversions for American Cups and European Grams.
I really LOVE Italian bakeries and especially Italian cookies.
These cookies are THOSE types of cookies!
They aren’t as sweet as American sugar cookies, but then the icing on top is the sweet part, making the best flavor combination.
This is a great cut out cookie recipe, the cookies rise up nicely, hold their shape, and have a cake-like quality to them that is irresistible.
These are tender and flavorful.
They have a lovely vanilla flavor, but you can easily add the flavoring of your choice be it lemon extract, almond extract, peppermint extract, anise extract or similar.
I’ve cut out lots of cookies and when I first started blogging I wrote posts for other blogs and now realize I didn’t share some of those informative posts with my readers.
Today I’m sharing an older post and all I will say is my cookie decorating has gotten better and so has my photo taking abilities. But I wanted to share this post with you.
These cookies are so delicious, they bake up nicely with a little more rise than my cut out sugar cookies. They have a more European biscuit quality to them than American sugar cookies. If you haven’t tried them, they are worth it and you can ice them easily or more decoratively with a piping bag.
See… practice makes perfect or in my case, it gets better with time, perfect…well maybe not yet, but I’m trying!
Italian Snowflake Sugar Cookies with Red Glaze Icing
This is still a favorite tried and true cookie recipe and with all the Holiday upcoming baking, you may want to try this one and the fun tip I have for adding sprinkles after the icing has dried.
These are so many options with cut out cookies, you can change the shape and colors but having a cookie and icing recipe you can GO TO, is priceless!
Begin with a cooled cookie and prepare the icing. Place icing in a piping bag with a #2 tip for outlining your design.
Outline your cookie. Leave just a little cookie showing so the icing won’t fall off the edge when you fill it.
Hold the tip off the cookie and let the icing fall onto the cookie for a smooth line. Don’t stretch the icing.
I outline 6 cookies then fill them in, the outline is not very noticeable, but allowing it a couple minutes to set up help the other icing from falling off the edge.
Then fill in the icing, you can switch to a #3 tip to fill it in easier. If it’s not filling in completely within 10 seconds use a toothpick or the tip of the icing and swirl the icing to fill in the empty spaces.
If you are using two or more colors finish one color first and allow it to set up, then work with the other colors, that way they are less likely to run into each other. which happens more often with darker colors.
Vodka!
This is a great trick to get sprinkles to stick on a portion of the cookies especially if you don’t want more icing added. If you are working on a large batch, this works well, once the area has dried I take a small paintbrush and lightly apply a stroke of vodka to the area you want sprinkles. If you are covering the entire cookie in sprinkles then just apply the sprinkles when the icing is still wet.
Once the icing has dried (about an hour) you can apply some details without it bleeding. I piped on a simple snowflake with the white icing and #2 tip.
Allow your cookie to set overnight.
They will not get stale, the icing is covering the majority of the cookie and they will still taste fresh and delicious.
This project can be broken up into stages and you can make the cookies ahead of time.
When I work on a large project 8-10 dozen with multiple colors, I break it up and work on them for three days especially if I’m wrapping them individually, that takes time.
I’ve made multiple batches of cookies for cookie exchange parties, and they are always a huge hit.
Ice cookies look so pretty on a tray, they can be any color you prefer.
you can coat them in sprinkles or add some to the edges or to one end like on these mittens.
Iced cookies are not only great for Christmas Cookies, but they are also great served all year long, using any shape cookie cutter and any color icing to fit with any occasion.
- 5 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups (345g) salted butter melted and cooled (10 minutes)
- 5-6 cups flour (5=737g 6=895g) start with 5 add more as needed
- 1 ¾ cups sugar (366g)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (8g)
- 3 teaspoons vanilla (15g)
- In a medium bowl, whisk eggs and melted butter.
- In a large bowl stir together flour, sugar, and baking powder.
- Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the egg mixture then vanilla.
- Mix, until shiny. About 2 minutes.
- Cover bowl with waxed paper and let the dough stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. When rolling out this dough, don’t be afraid to add flour. It will not make the dough tough.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees roll out dough to 3/8" thick with flour and cut with a cookie cutter.
- Bake 12 minutes
- Makes at least 5 dozen (3 inch) cookies.
- Let cookies completely cool before icing.
- 2 cups confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
- 2 Tablespoons water
- 1 Tablespoon corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- food coloring
- In a small bowl mix together until smooth add more milk/water if too thick or confectioners’ sugar if too thin.
- Add food coloring and vanilla and mix well. I prefer Americolor food coloring.
- When you pull up some icing on a spatula and drizzle it back into the bowl, the design should disappear in 10 seconds for the correct consistency.
- Outline the cookie with a #2 tip and use a #3 tip to fill in the design.
- Let icing set on decorated cookies before storing, this takes about 12 hours.
- The cookies won’t go stale, the icing is covering the tops preserving the freshness.
- Add the water slowly to the powdered sugar, you may not need it all or you can add more if you want the icing thinner.
Italian Cookie and Glaze Icing PRINTABLE Recipes from Created by Diane
HERE IS MY VIDEO ON ICING COOKIES with a PIPING BAG
Be sure to look at this POST on How to Bake Perfect Cut Out Cookies!
If you like this or any other recipe at 
karo says
You are a great teacher. Thanks for all the tips because I am seriously handicapped when it comes to decorating!
I love this article and the tidbit about the vodka. Am wondering how you discovered it. 🙂
Diane says
practice makes perfect on icing cookies I’ve found…good luck 🙂 I don’t recall how I came across the tip on the vodka, but I’ve been using it for years.
Terri C says
Great post, thanks for the tips!
Kristen says
I am completely icing and frosting challenged, but I think I might actually be able to do this. I needed to understand how to make a smooth cookie icing without making royal icing. Your recipe is just the ticket!
Laura V says
Hello, how does this recipe differ from your Sugar Cookie recipe in terms of flavor, texture and shelf life? How many cookies does this make using what sized cutter and how thick do you roll your dough?
Diane says
My Italian cookie recipe resemble Italian cookies you’d get in an Italian Bakery, they are more substantial, typically rolled thicker and they fluff up when baked nicely. I LOVE them, they are not a snappy as sugar cookies, they bake up firm, but not in the same way, there are more eggs in this recipe makes a lot of cookies. 6-8 dozen depending on the size cookie cutter you use. a 3-3 1/2 inch snowflake makes about 8 dozen. I roll them thicker than 1/4″ I roll my sugar cookie at 1/4″ sometimes I use 3/8″ dowels sometimes I just eyeball it. The shelf life is good on the Italian Cookies, a week at room temperature. They freeze wonderfully, I’ve frozen uniced and iced cookies for 3 months and defrosted they taste great. Be sure to get the air out of the packaging well and double wrap them, I most often wrap the cookies individually in food/cellophane bags.
Toni Hamilton says
Hi Diane! I just made up a batch of the Italian cookie dough. After I let it sit for 20 min under the wax paper, can I store it in fridge for cutting out and baking tomorrow. Just too late in the evening to cut dozens of cookies out tonight. :-)) Is the dough supposed to be sticky and gooey?
Thanks!
Toni Hamilton
Diane says
Yes you can refrigerate the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap real well. Flatten to a disk shape. When you go to roll it out, allow it to come to room temperature completely first. If it’s sticky, flour your hands abs knead the dough into a ball so it’s smooth. I don’t usually find this dough “sticky” but more buttery as it sits and a little flour added and kneaded until you get a smooth texture will work.
Bethany says
Hi Diane,
I am making several dozen cookies for a baby shower using various baby cookies. I love the look of your glaze and am wondering if it will hold up as good as the usual royal icing. I will be stacking them at some point and that is my concern.
Thank you so much for giving of your time to help less experienced bakers.
Diane says
Hi Bethany, the glaze icing will dry hard and you can stack them without any worries, allow the icing to dry completely (as you would with royal icing) 12-24 hours before stacking to ensure the icing is completely dry. Drying time will depend on the size of cookie iced, the thickness of icing applied and temperature and weather conditions (more humid will take longer, as will a really cold kitchen) I sometimes put a small electric 10″ space heater on the kitchen counter if it’s really cold in the winter (or damp and rainy) and I need them to dry quicker.