Italian-American butter cookies (aka, the ones kids love)

Walk into an Italian bakery and you're likely to see shelves and shelves of butter cookies in an array of varieties and shapes.  They may be decked out in sprinkles, filled with jam or fudge, or dipped in chocolate. 

Before I started baking so often at home, I'd take my little one to a nearby Italian bakery and aside from the almond cookies, he always wanted these butter cookies.  I think they're generally popular with kids since they're so eye-catching with all the chocolate, colorful sprinkles and jam involved. Moreover, the pure flavor of butter and vanilla just goes down easy.

So this year, with my son in mind, I thought I'd try my hand at making these kid-friendly cookies at home.  In all their varieties, but from one basic dough, they are festive-looking and great for a holiday cookie platter.

I kept things traditional and simple, resisting the urge to add vanilla beans or almond extract, or to try the version that contains almond paste.  Those are projects for another time.  This basic cookie dough is fun to play with in terms of the variety of cookies you can make. You can pipe different shapes using one star tip.  For the embellishments, I tucked some of the centers with mini chocolate chips, candied cherries, and fruit preserves before baking.  I sandwich some together with apricot preserve and dipped a bunch in chocolate ganache.  Sprinkles make everything even better.

These cookies made me smile and baking them really put me in the holiday mood.  Before starting, I thought they might be a bit of a hassle to make but not only does the dough comes together in a flash, it was easy to work with in terms of piping.  That was actually a lot of fun - quick and easy, too.

These also make me think of Danish butter cookies - those blue tins have a special place in my heart. I didn't grow up eating many sweets but we did have those butter cookies.  As a child, I loved opening up the tin, taking a long whiff of that delicious buttery aroma, and looking inside, I'd finger those paper liners, deciding which shape I wanted to eat.  I loved the pretzel shape with the coarse sugar on top the best.  These cookies are similar to Danish butter cookies though it seems the Danish ones are more commonly made with confectioners' sugar (somewhat like these cookies).  Now I realize I'll have yet another project for next Christmas!

I hope these little cookies make you smile the way they did for us.


This basic butter cookie dough comes together lickety-split!  You might very well consider doubling the recipe (as the recipe didn't make as many cookies as I thought it would) if you want to have plenty to share with kids and kids-at-heart.  Because of how different you can make them, they really make a lovely little cookie platter all by themselves.

Piping is not something I do all that often.  I worried about this but it was surprisingly easy.  All of these butter cookie recipes ask you to use a "large star tip".  I used Ateco 864, the closest thing I had to it.  I also tried a Wilton 1M tip but I found the groves to be a little too distinct and preferred using the Ateco 864.

Using the one tip, I piped straightforward rosette shapes as well as "S" shapes and a few "finger" shapes.  You could also make rounds and whatever else you can think of.  In retrospect, I should have made piped some candy cane shapes (or what I like to think of as upside down "J" shapes since that's my son's initial) and dipped the hook in chocolate!

Fillings like the mini chocolate chips, preserves, and candied cherries can be placed into the dough before baking.  You can also make thumbprint cookies with this dough by simply rolling the dough into balls and pressing a hole in the center for the preserves or candied cherries.  

I've seen these cookies filled with ganache or fudge in the center at many Italian bakeries.  To do that, press a hole into the center of the cookie before baking and fill or pipe in the ganache once the cookie cools.  With a fudge filling like this one, you could even fill them before baking.

I set aside some plain cookies to decorate with chocolate.  You could dip the cookies with melted chocolate but with some cream in the fridge, I went with ganache instead.  I think the ganache softens the cookies a bit more than using plain chocolate, which might or might not appeal to you depending on the texture you prefer for your butter cookies.  

If using ganache like I do, you could sandwich a couple of cookies with it or or fill them with fruit preserves, then dip in ganache and top with sprinkles.  I did a little of each.  (And I used my leftover ganache to make hot chocolate!) 

However you decorate them, these are really fun to make.  My son was at school the morning I made these and I was wishing he was home with me.  Next time, I think this would make a fun project to do together.  It's relatively easy and such fun to customize.

 

Recipe:

Italian-American Butter Cookies
Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

- Approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies but it depends on the size of your cookies (and whether you make sandwich cookies) - 

For base cookie dough:
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Filling/decorating options (depending on your preference):
Miniature chocolate chips, fruit preserves (such as apricot, strawberry, raspberry), candied cherries, dark chocolate or ganache, sprinkles, nonpareils, and/or chopped nuts and candies

For cookie dough:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon baking mats.  

In a stand mixer, beat butter, sugar, vanilla and salt together on medium-high speed until fluffy.  Beat in the egg.  On low-speed, add flour and beat until just incorporated.

Fit a pastry bag with a large star tip (I used Ateco #864).  Fill the bag with the cookie dough (I like to set the bag inside a tall glass, fold the top of the bag over to make a cuff, and then fill it). [Alternatively, if you do not want to pipe the dough, you could roll the dough into 1-inch rounds, press a hole in the center with your thumb and place a filling inside it to make thumbprint cookies.]

Pipe the dough onto baking sheets into stars (or other shapes), spacing about 1-inch apart.  See decorating options below.  Bake cookies until lightly golden along the edges, about 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets midway through the baking time.  Let cool 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Decorating options:
- Bake cookies as is and when cooled, sandwich two together with a fruit preserve of your choice or with chocolate ganache.  Dip one end of the sandwich cookie with melted chocolate or ganache, add sprinkles on top of that, if desired.

- Bake cookies as is and dip half of each cookie with ganache or melted dark chocolate.  Add sprinkles, crushed candies, or nuts over chocolate.  Set on parchment until chocolate sets.

- Before baking, press 3-5 miniature chocolate chips into the center of each cookie.

- Before baking, make a deep indentation in the center of the dough with your thumb.  Fill the indent with fruit preserves or candied cherries (or fudge), then bake as directed.

- To fill the center of the cookies with ganache, make indentations in the cookie dough before baking and bake without filling.  After the cookies have baked and cooled completely, pipe or spoon thickened ganache into the empty indentations.