These soft and buttery Italian butter cookies are a little old-fashioned but they’re ALWAYS in season.
Whip and bake the whole thing in less than 30 minutes.
Easy, elegant and seriously delicious.

Italian Butter Cookies
Whip up these delicious, soft and buttery Italian butter cookies in less than 30 minutes. I have to warn you though, they might be gone even faster!
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Servings: 40 cookies
Ingredients
- 8 oz butter softened
- 1 cup (4 oz) powdered sugar or white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk optional, see notes
- 2 cups (12 oz) flour
- 1 tbsp baking power
- Lemon zest or Vanilla powder
For decoration:
Instructions
- In a mixer bowl add butter a room temperature. Beat on medium speed until it becomes fluffy and gets lighter in color.
- Add powdered sugar, beat until combined.
- Add eggs and continue beating for 1-2 minutes until you get a fluffy airy batter.
- Using a kitchen spatula fold in previous measured and sieved flour, baking powder and vanilla powder. Pass again with a mixer to get a smooth batter.
- NOTE: Instead of vanilla you can use lemon or orange zest of an organic, untreated citrus to add extra flavor to the cookies.
- As a final result you should have a pretty stiff cookie dough.
NOTE: if the dough is TOO stiff to pipe, add 1 egg yolk. Mix well and refill the pastry bag. - Get a pastry bag with a large start tip or a cookie spritz and fill it with the dough and start piping. It’s best to use a cloth pastry bag as this kind of dough is pretty hard to pipe. If you’re using a plastic bag there’s a big chance it’ll break.
- Decorate cookies to your preference: with candied cherries, whole almonds or even chocolate “kisses”.
- Bake in a preheated to 350F oven for about 15 minutes.
Let cool before serving or decorating further. - If you want to make a sandwich cookie, spread jam, chocolate or nutella over the bottom of one cookie and “glue” it to the other one.
Notes
As another variation, once cookies cooked and completely cool, deep half of the cookie in melted chocolate and top with colorful sugar sprinkles.
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Happy Baking!
joye
Saturday 18th of September 2021
Can you use vanilla or almond extract instead of vanilla powder?
Italian Recipe Book
Monday 20th of September 2021
Yes Joye, you can substitute 1 tsp vanilla or 1 tsp almond extract for vanilla powder, even though I'd give preference to vanilla extract rather than almond.
Jennifer
Monday 22nd of June 2020
Worst recipe. No Flavor at all!
Jackie
Monday 14th of December 2020
@Jennifer, I noticed there is no salt in it.
Mary Murray
Tuesday 24th of December 2019
! cup equals 8 oz so the measurements are tricky in the recipe. What did you mean ounces or cups?