Italian Butter Cookies (Piped bakery style)

Italian butter cookies, piped into circles and rectangles and dotted with colorful sprinkles or dolloped with chocolate frosting, are among the world's greatest culinary achievements.

These cookies are extra tender thanks to three egg yolks in the dough.

This recipe has been adapted from the late baker Lee Mangione Cirillo who wrote The Italian Bakery with adapted for the home versions of her favorite cookies to serve at her bakery.

Jump to:

• Recipe Highlights
• Before You Start
• Italian Butter Cookie ingredients
• How to Make Italian Butter Cookies
• How to Pipe Italian Butter Cookies
• What Can Go Wrong?
• Recipe Notes
• Why I Make Italian Butter Cookies
• Recipe
• Chocolate frosting for butter cookies
• Recipe
• Cookie Baking Advice
• Comments

Recipe Highlights

• Made with three egg yolks for a rich, tender crumb (save the egg whites for meringue cookies).
• Pipe with a large open-star tip.
• Easy to decorate with sprinkles or jam or frosting.

Before You Start

• Pipe the cookies directly onto an ungreased, unlined baking sheet. The dough needs to adhere to the pan as you pipe, which it won’t do on parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
• Use a sturdy pastry bag, not a zip-top bag. This dough is too thick for a plastic storage bag and may cause the seams to burst. Ask me how many times I’ve learned that lesson.
• Pipe the dough into your desired shapes, then chill the cookies before baking for at least 30 minutes, ideally an hour. Chilling helps the cookies hold their piped shape in the oven.
• You can make these cookies with either butter or stick margarine. Do not use spreadable margarine from a tub.

Italian Butter Cookie ingredients

• Butter, warmer than room temperature, should be able to indent easily with a finger. How to soften butter quickly.
• Granulated sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Egg yolks
• Flour, all purpose, measured correctly
• kosher salt

(See recipe card for ingredient amounts)

How to Make Italian Butter Cookies

1. Cream butter and sugar two to three minutes until combined.
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 large open star tip and pipe into rosettes or rectangles on an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Chill piped dough for at least 30 minutes, ideally an hour.
7. Bake at 400F° for 7 to 10 minutes.

How to Pipe Italian Butter Cookies

Fit a sturdy pastry bag with a large open-star tip. I use an Ateco #828, which has a .63-inch opening.

Fill the bag halfway with room-temperature dough, twist the top closed and pipe circles or strips directly onto an ungreased, unlined baking sheet.

If the dough is difficult to pipe, let it sit at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes.

What Can Go Wrong?

The piping bag bursts.

Use a sturdy pastry bag, not a zip top storage bag. This dough is thick enough to split the seams of a plastic storage bag.

If your bag splits, slice the bag open all the way and scoop the dough into a new bag.

The dough is too hard to pipe.

Let the dough sit at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes, possibly even longer.

Make sure your butter was soft to begin with and that you measured your flour correctly. If there are questions about either of those ingredients, you may be better off starting over.

Or, forget piping the dough and shape it into one-inch balls instead.

The piped cookies lose their shape in the oven.

Bake one test cookie first to see how it turns out. If it spreads or loses the ridges you get from the star baking tip, they need to be chilled longer.

Or did you try to skip chilling? Don't skip this.

Chill the piped cookies for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, before baking. Pipe them directly onto the ungreased baking sheet instead of parchment or silicone.

Recipe Notes

• For a different flavor, replace the vanilla with almond extract or Fiori di Sicilia.
• If you don’t have a pastry bag, shape the dough into one-inch balls and flatten them slightly. Chill before baking as directed.
• You can also shape the dough with a cookie press.

Why I Make Italian Butter Cookies

One thing I miss about my home state of Missouri is the Italian bakeries.

For years, my mother sent me a box of Christmas cookies from Missouri Baking Co. After my parents moved to Maine, however, my annual cookie delivery came to an end.

The bakery doesn’t ship because the cookies are too fragile. And now that I've made my own Italian butter cookies several times, I get it. These would never survive a cross-country trip. 🙁

Naturally, I started collecting Italian cookie recipes so I could make my own.

Chocolate frosting for butter cookies