Best Italian Butter Cookies You Ever Tasted

Italian Butter Cookies with frosting are tender and extra rich thanks to three egg yolks in the dough. I'll also show you how to pipe butter cookies and what size pastry tip you need.

Jump to:

• Cookie Baking Advice
• Ingredients for Piped Butter Cookies
• How to Make These Cookies
• How to Pipe Italian Butter Cookies
• Recipe Notes:
• Tips for Working with Piping Bags
• Recipe
• Comments

The one thing I miss from my home state of Missouri is good Italian food, especially a good Italian bakery.

For years at Christmas, my mother sent me a box of Italian cookies from Missouri Baking Co.

But, my parents have moved to Maine permanently.

Italian cookies have a special place in my heart and on this site. One of my most popular recipes is Italian Butter Cookies. Have you heard of Befanini Cookies or Cannoli Cookies? Then there are Orange Cookies with Orange Icing, Snowballs and Easy Christmas Cut-Outs.

It's nice having my family here but it also means no more Missouri Baking Co. cookies. 🙁

I've tried ordering from the bakery but they say the cookies are too fragile for mail order.

So, I've had to collect as many Italian cookie recipes as possible!

This recipe is from The Italian Bakery Cook Book by Lee Cirillo.

The book has been out of print for nearly 40 years but I was able to buy a photocopy from a woman in New York.

If you're looking for more festive cookie recipes, I would also try crushed candy cane cookies.

Ingredients for Piped Butter Cookies

• Butter
• Granulated sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Egg yolks
• Flour, all purpose
• kosher salt

(See recipe card for ingredient amounts)

How to Make These Cookies

1. Cream butter and sugar for five minutes at medium speed.
2. Add egg yolks and vanilla, mix until blended.
3. Add dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined and no white streaks of flour remain. (beat too long and you'll have tough cookies)
4. You have three options for baking:
5. Either fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1M tip and pipe into rosette on ungreased cookie sheet.

OR

Roll the dough into one inch balls. Flatten each one slightly with your palm Top with colored sprinkles.

OR

Use a cookie press.

Bake at 400 for 7 to 10 minutes. Remember oven times and strength varies.

How to Pipe Italian Butter Cookies

Piping bags are easy to use and they give your cookies a polished appearance.

1. Open a piping bag,
2. Stick tip inside the bag all the way down so it peeks out of the bag's narrow opening.
3. Fill the bag about halfway with dough.
4. Lay the bag flat on your countertop.
5. Grab a bench scraper and slide it down the pastry bag, pushing the dough towards the bottom of the bag so you don't have any dough threatening to spill out.
6. Fold the very top of the piping bag over once or twice.
7. Using both hands, one hand at the top of the bag and one hand near the tip, squeeze the dough so it extrudes from the tip into strips or circles onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.
8. Pastry bags are really simple to use, especially if your dough is the correct temperature, which in the case of these cookies, is room temperature.

You'll need a large, open star tip, I use this one.

Pastry bags will allow you to work more quickly. Disposable pastry bags make life easier.

A pastry bag or a big resealable plastic bag will allow you to work more quickly once you've gotten the hang of piping these butter cookies. I recommend disposable bags to make your life simpler.

Recipe Notes:

If you don't have vanilla extract, you could substitute almond extract instead or try my favorite, Fiori di Sicilia.

If the dough is too firm to pipe, you can return the dough to the mixing bowl and add an extra egg yolk.

You want the dough super pliable and supple to squeeze through that star tip. 

You'll use the yolks from three eggs.

Save your egg whites to make Forgotten cookies.

Also, the oven temperature, listed at 400 F, might seem hot but that's the correct temperature.

I followed this recipe exactly as Lee Cirillo wrote it and it was delicious.

However, Cirillo's published her book in 1982 when we were not as wanton with salt in sweet recipes as we are today.

I've since begun adding a ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt in with the dry ingredients.

Get the Fluffiest Chocolate Buttercream frosting recipe to top these Italian cookies.

If you haven't yet worked with a pastry bag to pipe cookie dough, try it.

Tips for Working with Piping Bags

What Size Star Tip for Making Italian Butter Cookies?

The best size tip for piping these Italian butter cookies is an Ateco #828, which is an open star tip .63. 

But if you don't have tips or pastry bags and don't want to invest in them, it's okay.

You can also use a teaspoon or a small cookie scoop to portion the dough into one-inch round balls, which you'll flatten a bit with the palm of your hands.

You can still put a dot of frosting on top, perhaps using a teaspoon after baking the cookies and letting them cool.

Or you can roll the dough in colorful sprinkles before you bake them.

More Cookie Recipes

Do you need more cookies to go with these butter cookies? Try a double chocolate chunk shortbread or family favorite, Chocolate Chipless Cookies.

Citrus is always a good choice for bite-size dessert like these Lemon Shortbread Heart Cookies.

You might also like Best Cookie Butter Cookies or Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies or Cookie Monster Cookies (Om nom nom nom) or Christina Tosi Cornflake Cookies

Perhaps you're looking for a cookie with a bit more flavor? Try my foolproof gingersnap recipe.