Italian Cookie Recipes

Authentic Italian Cookie Recipes For Biscotti, Amaretti, and Cialdoni

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Biscotti Croccanti, or Crisp Biscuits / Italian Cookie Recipe

One pound flour, 1/2 pound granulated sugar, 1/4 pound sweet almonds, whole and shelled, mixed to a few pine seeds; a piece of butter, one and a half ounces; a pinch of aniseeds, five eggs, a pinch of salt.

Leave back the almonds and pine seeds to add them afterward, and mix everything with four eggs, so as to use the fifth if it is necessary to make a soft dough. Divide into four cakes half an inch thick and as large as a hand, place them in a receptacle greased with butter and sprinkled with flour. Glaze the cakes with yolk of eggs.

Bake in the oven, but only as much as will still permit cutting the cakes into slices, which you will do the day after, as the crust will then be softened. Put the slices back in the oven, so that they will be toasted on both sides and you will have the crisp biscuits.

Biscotti Teneri, or Soft Biscuits / Italian Cookie Recipe

For these biscuits, it would be necessary to have a tin box about four inches wide and a little less long than the oven used. In this way the biscuits will have a corner on both sides and, if cut a little more than half an inch, they will be of the right proportion.

The ingredients needed are: flour, about two ounces; potato meal, a little less; sugar, four ounces (1/4 lb); sweet almonds, 1-1/2 ounces; candied orange or angelica, one ounce; fruit preserve, one ounce; three eggs.

Skin the almonds, cut them in half lengthways and dry in the sun or at the fire. Pastry cooks usually leave them with the skin, but it is much preferable to skin them. Cut in little cubes the candied fruits and the preserve.

Stir for a long while, about half an hour, the sugar in the egg yolks and a little flour then add the whites of the eggs well beaten and when everything is well beaten add the flour and potato meal, letting it fall from a sieve. Mix slowly and scatter on the remaining ingredients, mixing the almonds and the cubes of candied and preserved fruit. Grease and sprinkle the tin box with flour. Bake in the oven and cut the biscuits the day after. If desired, these can also be roasted on both sides.

Biscotto Alla Sultana, or Biscuits Sultan / Italian Cookie Recipe

Granulated sugar, six ounces; flour, four ounces; potato meal, two ounces; currants, three ounces; candied fruits, one ounce; five eggs, a taste of lemon peel, two tablespoonfuls of brandy.

Put first on the fire the currants and the candied fruits cut in very little cubes with as much brandy or cognac as is necessary to cover them; when it boils, light the brandy and let it burn out of the fire until the liquor is all consumed; then remove the currants and candy and let them dry in a folded napkin.

Then stir for half an hour the sugar with the egg yolks and the taste of lemon peel. Beat well the white of the eggs and pour them on the sugar and yolks. Add the flour and potato meal letting them fall from a sieve and stir slowly until everything is well mixed together. Add the currants and the pieces of candied fruits and pour the mixing in a smooth mold or in a high and round cake dish. Grease the mold or the dish with butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar or flour. Put at once in the oven to avoid that the currants and candied fruits fall in the oven.

Biscotto, or Biscuit / Italian Cookie Recipe

Six eggs; granulated sugar, nine ounces; flour, four ounces; potato meal, two ounces; taste of lemon peel.

Stir for at least half an hour the yolks of the eggs with the sugar and a tablespoonful only of the flour and meal, using a ladle. Beat the whites of the eggs until they are quite firm, mix slowly with the first mixture and when they are well incorporated pour over from a sieve the flour and the potato meal, previously dried in the sun or on the fire.

Bake in a tin where the mixture comes about one inch and a half thick, previously greasing the tin with cold butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar mixed with flour.

In these cakes with beaten whites the following method can also be followed: mix and stir first the yolks with the sugar, then put the flour then, after a good kneading, beat the whites until they are firm, pour two tablespoonfuls to soften the mixture, then the rest little by little.

Cialdoni, or Wafer Biscuit Recipe / Italian Cookie Recipe

Put in a kettle: flour, three ounces; brown sugar, one ounce; lard, virgin, half an ounce; cold water, seven tablespoonfuls. First, dilute the flour and the sugar in the water, then add the lard.

Put on the fire the iron for waffles or better an appropriated iron for flattened wafers. When it is quite hot, open it and place each time half a tablespoonful of the paste. Close the iron and press well. Pass over the fire on both sides, trim all around with a knife and open the iron when you see that the wafer is browned. Then detach it from one side of the iron and, hot as it is, roll it on the iron itself or on a napkin using a little stick. This operation must be made with great rapidity because if the wafer gets cold, it cannot be rolled.

Should the wafers remain attached to the iron, grease it from time to time; and if they are not firm enough, add a little flour.

The wafer biscuits made from this Italian cookie recipe are generally served with whipped cream or gelato. They can also be rolled in a cone shape for ice cream.

Amaretti, or Macaroon Recipe / Italian Cookie Recipe

Granulated sugar, nine ounces; sweet almonds, three and a half ounces; bitter almonds, half of the sweet almonds quantity; whites of egg, two.

Skin and dry the almonds, then chop them very fine. Mix the sugar and the whites of egg and stir for about half an hour, then add the almonds to form a rather hard paste. Of this make little balls, as large as a small walnut. If the paste is too soft add a little butter, if too hard add a little white of egg, this time beaten. Were it desired to give the macaroons a brownish color, mix with the paste a little burnt sugar.

As you form the little ball, that you will flatten to the thickness of one-third of an inch, put them over wafers or on pieces of paper or in a baking tin greased with butter and sprinkled with half flour and half powdered sugar. Dispose them at a certain distance from one another as they will enlarge and swell, remaining empty inside.

Bake in a moderately hot oven.

Amaretti, or Macaroon Recipe / Italian Cookie Recipe

Powdered sugar, ten and a half ounces; sweet almonds, three ounces; bitter almonds, one ounce; two whites of egg.

Skin the almonds and dry them in the sun or on the fire, then chop and grind very fine with one white of egg poured in various times. When this is done, put half of the sugar, stirring, and kneading with your hand. Then pour everything in a large bowl and, always mixing, add half of the other white of egg, then the other half of the sugar and finally the other half of the white. In this way, a homogenous mixture will be obtained of the right firmness.

Shake into a kind of a stick and cut it in rounds all equal, one-third of an inch thick. Take them up one by one with moistened fingers and make little balls as large as a walnut. Flatten them to the thickness of a third of an inch and put them over wafers or on pieces of paper or in a baking tin greased with butter and sprinkled with half flour and half powdered sugar. Dispose them at a certain distance from one another as they will enlarge and swell, remaining empty inside. Dust with powdered sugar before putting in a hot oven.

With this dose about thirty macaroons can be obtained.

1 lb of Valencia almonds, 2 lb of powdered sugar, 7 or 8 whites of eggs. Beat the almonds with whites of eggs, but not so fine as for common macaroons; lay out stiff on wafer-paper; have almonds cut in slices, one into six pieces, lay them on the sides and top of each macaroon; ice them well from the icing bag, and bake in a slow oven.

One pound of sugar, the whites of six eggs; clarify the sugar, and boil it to the blow; in the meantime whip up the whites, as for dry meringues, take the sugar from the fire, and rub it against the sides of the pan to grain it; as soon as it begins to turn white, mix in the whipped eggs, stirring the sugar well from the bottom or sides of the pan, with the whisk; lay them off and bake as dry meringues.

These may be colored, by adding the liquid color to the syrup, so as to give the desired tint; and either of them may be flavored, by rubbing off the peel of oranges, or lemons, on sugar, and scraping it off as it imbibes the oil; or it may be flavored with vanilla, by cutting it in small pieces and pounding it with some sugar; or with any liquor, by adding a spoonful or two, when you mix the eggs, or sugar.

They may also be varied in shape and baked in tin or iron plates, instead of wood, that the bottom may be quite firm. The tops may be covered with almonds, blanched and cut small, or in fillets; or with currants, or colored sugars; the whole depending on the taste and ingenuity of the artist.