Italian Christmas cookies are a special holiday treat with a soft and tender vanilla cookie topped with an almond glaze and festive Christmas sprinkles.
Table of Contents
Why I Love This Italian Christmas Cookie Recipe
- They’re one of my favorite Christmas cookies to make ahead and freeze!
- You’ll love the soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture, frosty almond icing, and sweet crunch from the sprinkles.
Ingredients and Notes
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- Baking staples: For these Christmas Italian cookies, you’ll need softened butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Ricotta cheese: Ricotta cheese is a mild, soft cheese that is used widely in savory and sweet Italian recipes. It gives the cookies a soft, tender crumb.
- For the icing: Powdered sugar, almond extract, salt, warm cream, or milk.
- Christmas sprinkles: Nonpareil sprinkles are the ones I like to use. They come in all kinds of colors, but for holiday cookies I stick to red, white and green combination.
How to Make Italian Christmas Cookies
In a large bowl, cream butter sugar, eggs, vanilla, and ricotta cheese. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Chill the cookie dough for at least 30 minutes.
Use a large spoon or cookie scoop to drop the dough onto a prepared parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 9-10 minutes until the bottoms are lightly golden.
Let cookies rest on the baking pan for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Whisk together the icing ingredients in a small bowl. If it’s too thick, add a splash of milk or cream to thin it out. Spoon it over the cookies and top with sprinkles while the icing is still wet. Let the icing set and enjoy!
Tips and Variations
- The key to achieving a moist and tender cake-like texture is to measure the flour correctly, not overmix the dough and not overbake the cookies.
- Do not skip chilling the dough. This helps prevent too much spread and helps the cookies hold their shape.
- This is just one of the ways to flavor these Italian cookies! You can swap the vanilla extract for something like anise extract, orange extract or peppermint extract.
- In the summer, using lemon extract with lemon zest in the icing is heavenly.
- Double the glaze or skip it altogether. Add a simple dusting of powdered sugar.
- Use different colored sprinkles depending on the occasion. Even for Christmas, you can use little white snowflakes, gold flakes or gold sprinkles.
More cookie recipes cream cheese cookies, thumbprint cookies and almond cookies.
More Cookie Recipes
Browse all
HUNGRY FOR MORE? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for all the newest recipes!
Italian Christmas Cookies
Video
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 cup butter , softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 15 ounce container Ricotta cheese
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
Icing:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 pinch salt
- 3-4 Tablespoons cream or milk , warmed
- Christmas sprinkles
Instructions
Cookies:
- Preparation: Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix wet ingredients: In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar. Then mix in the 2 eggs, 1 Tablespoon vanilla and 15 ounces ricotta cheese.
- Add dry ingredients: In a separate bowl, mix together 4 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Then add to the wet ingredients and mix just until combined. Chill dough at least 30 minutes, up to 24 hours.
- Drop cookies: Using a spoon or small-medium cookie scoop, drop the dough onto the cookie sheet. Use another spoon or your finger to help the dough onto the pan.
- Bake cookies: Bake for 10 minutes, or until the bottoms get lightly golden brown and the middle is set (no longer wet looking). Allow to sit on the pan for 2 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack, so the bottoms don't over brown.
Icing:
- Make icing: Whisk together 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon almond extract, 1 pinch salt and 3 Tablespoons cream or milk until smooth. If icing is thick, add the last Tablespoon of milk to thin it out.
- Frost cookies: Spoon the icing over the cookies, and top with sprinkles while the icing is still wet.
Nutrition
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below!
Recipe FAQs
They do not! These will keep fresh for up to a week at room temperature. Always keep them covered in an airtight container so they don’t dry out.
Transfer them to a freezer bag or freezer-safe container. If using a freezer bag, remove as much air as possible to avoid freezer burn. Keep frozen for up to a couple of months. Thaw at room temperature when you’re ready to eat them.
Categorized as: Christmas, Cookies, Desserts, Frosted Cookies, Holiday Cookies, Italian
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
Made cookies exactly as it said, and I ended up with 60! So we got an extra batch because I make small cookies apparently haha
I had to improvise with my icing (found out I didn’t have any powdered sugar) and added some almond extract to sweetened condensed milk which turned out great!
The more cookies the better :) So glad you icing worked out for you!
Delicious! They are light and the icing adds even more flavor. Will definitely try the lemon!
So glad you loved the Italian Christmas cookies!
Should the butter be unsalted? I see you add kosher salt so I’m thinking unsalted.
Correct, in my baking recipes I always opt to use unsalted butter unless noted.
I tried these for the first time today. I must have done something wrong. The cookies did not spread like picture of yours did and some of the insides were a bit doughy. They taste good, they just have the appearance of biscuits.
Hi Janis, did you add too much flour? That can often cause cookies to be too dense.
Very good better than anise
For a gluten free version could I just swap out one for one on the flour?
Yes you can swap one for one or cup for cup :)
Very good. My Italian grandmother’s recipe calls for anise and an additional egg vs. ricotta. Don’t tell her, but these were better (taste and texture).
So glad you enjoyed the cookies!
Salted or unsalted butter?
Hi Carrie, I always use unsalted butter in baking recipes. Enjoy!
Love these cookies! I made some with almond, and some lemon.
Very soft and light cookies! I love almond flavoring- it is very nostalgic for me- so I really loved the flavor of these cookies.
Agreed, the almond flavoring really makes these Italian Christmas cookies over the top delicious!
These are the softest, most delicious cookies! We can’t stop eating them! They are so easy to make, which I’m sure I will do often. Definitely a new favorite!
Thanks for the review and so glad to hear your family loves the Italian Christmas cookies!