Best Italian Butter Cookie Recipe

 

I like these Italian butter cookies better than store-bought ones. The base is super simple to make and the cookies will bake up in no time. The most time-consuming part would be if you choose to decorate them after baking or if you want to turn them into sandwich cookies. From this recipe, the sandwich cookies and sprinkle cookies are my favorite.

 

Baking tip: Danielle at The Underground Baker recommended Ateco piping bags to me. Love them! This is the first year that I was able to pipe out these cookies without a bag busting, as the batter is a little stiff.

 

I don’t know exactly how many cookies the batter will make. I was able to make everything in the below picture + about 10 more. Keep in mind I used 2 cookies per sandwich cookie.

 

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 cup of shortening (I just used Crisco)

2 cups of granulated sugar

2 eggs

4 TBS milk

2 TSP vanilla

5 cups all-purpose flour

Couple of pinches of salt

 

 

Now What?

In a mixer, cream the butter, shortening, and sugar together till it looks fluffy. Add in the eggs and mix. Add in milk then mix. Add in vanilla extract and mix. Add in a cup of flour and mix. Repeat a cup of flour at a time till done with flour. Add in salt and mix.

 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie trays with parchment paper. Pipe cookies onto tray. I usually pipe out the amount of sandwich cookies I want (keep in mind, two cookies per one sandwich cookie), then pipe out some more single strips or rounds to make ones with cherries or chocolate chips pushed into them. For sprinkle cookies, I keep some batter in the mixer and mix in the sprinkles. The sprinkle cookies don’t need to be piped out. Just roll some rounds out in your hands, flatten a little and place on tray.

 

Keep in mind that cookies will expand while baking, so make sure to leave some room between each cookie. Keep an eye on them as they bake. Depending on your oven it will take around 10 minutes for each batch to bake through, give or take a couple of minutes. Once you see the base turning a little golden around the edges, pull the cookies out. They will continue to cook a little on the tray. After a few minutes, transfer cookies to cool off over a wire grate.

 

For Italian sandwich cookies dipped in chocolate: I use an Ateco French star 869 tip for this. I’ve never measured, just eyeballed, but I think I pipe out about 2-inch strips. Once the cookies are done baking and have cooled off, match cookies of similar size together. Pipe a filling of your choice (I like apricot jam, but you can use raspberry, chocolate, etc) and sandwich together. Then dip the tip in melted chocolate and then sprinkles of choice. Then place back on the wire tray. Once the chocolate has solidified, you can pack the cookies away.

 

All of these cookies are great for freezing as well. I usually do so that we have some to eat after the holidays.