Pizzelle Cookies

A holiday season hasn’t gone by without a pile of pizzelle cookies at my table. My grandmother and mother made pizzelle every year; it wasn’t Christmas until the aroma of butter, anise and sugar filled the air. Now everyone in the family—aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins—have their own pizzelle makers to make these deliciously crisp, subtly sweet Italian cookies any time.

In Italy and many Italian communities around the U.S., you’ll find pizzelle cookies served at festive gatherings. When not made at home, pizzelle are sold at bakeries and restaurants, and pre-packaged ones line the shelves of markets and grocery stores. The latter are perfectly symmetrical in size, design and color, but they’re never as good as the ones you can make with a great pizzelle cookie recipe at home.

What are pizzelle cookies?

Pizzelle, the plural of pizzella, means “flat, round and small” in Italian. Pizzelle are believed to be the world’s oldest cookie, created in the Abruzzo region of Italy in the eighth century.

Made with butter, eggs, sugar, baking powder and flour, these old-world Italian cookies are delightfully crisp and thin with a light and tender texture. Bakers traditionally used two cast-iron plates with long handles held over a fire or stove to make pizzelle cookies. Today, the cookies are made in electronic, nonstick pizzelle makers, similar to waffle makers. The patterns stamped on both sides of a pizzelle cookie are usually intricate and lacy, like a snowflake.

You can serve pizzelle alone with a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Another option is to roll them into a tubular shape or form them into a bowl and fill them with gelato, ice cream or sweetened ricotta cheese (like cannoli).

The snowflake shape makes the pizzelle cookies recipe a constant around Christmas and winter holidays, but you’ll also see the cookies around Easter and on wedding cookie tables. In at least one town in Italy, they’re hung from trees yearly to honor the town’s patron saint.

The Pizzelle Cookie Maker

Some pizzelle makers form perfect round edges, some have different patterns and some create a jagged laciness. Some make one, two or four cookies at a time. None of these is wrong! It’s all personal preference. The Chef’s Choice model is widely available (and also makes an excellent waffle cone maker), but there are many other brands to choose from. I use a fairly weathered VillaWare pizzelle maker that prepares the cookies exactly how I like them.

Pizzelle Cookie Ingredients

• Eggs: Room-temperature eggs are always better for baking. They’ll mix more easily into the other ingredients.
• Sugar: Granulated sugar sweetens the pizzelle cookies recipe and creates a tender cookie.
• Butter: Unsalted or salted butter is fine for this pizzelle cookie recipe. If using the microwave to melt the butter, use your butter wrapper to keep the butter from splattering everywhere.
• Flour: All-purpose flour is all you need for this cookie.
• Baking powder: A mixture of baking soda and cream of tartar, baking powder gives rise to this pizzelle cookies recipe.
• Aniseed: Anise is a licorice-tasting spice that can be used as whole seeds or ground into a powder. You can also omit the aniseed and increase your anise extract, if desired.
• Vanilla extract: The best vanilla extract should taste like pure vanilla without any additives or chemical taste.
• Anise extract: Like aniseed, this licorice-tasting extract is very traditional in Italian baked goods. Omit it if you like, but if you do, add more vanilla or another extract to taste.

Directions

Step 1: Make the dough

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and butter until smooth. In another bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder; gradually add to the egg mixture. Mix well until the flour is incorporated into the dough. Stir in the aniseed and extracts.

Editor’s Tip: The pizzelle dough will be somewhat stiff, but be careful not to overmix it. Depending on whether you like your pizzelle crispy and thin or softer and thick, you can adjust the thickness by the amount of flour used. For instance, hold back some flour and check the consistency, then gradually add more flour if you want your cookies thicker.

Step 2: Bake the pizzelle

Bake the cookies in a preheated pizzelle maker according to the manufacturer’s directions until golden brown.

Editor’s Tip: After you preheat the maker, it’s important to spray both sides with cooking spray or brush both sides with canola or vegetable oil. When dropping the dough onto the maker, off-center is better than a bull’s-eye: The dough shifts forward a hair when you close the maker, so it’s best to drop the dough slightly above center. After a few testers, you’ll get a sense of what works for your cookie maker. If your pizzelle maker has a lock mechanism, use it to ensure a crisp cookie.

Step 3: Cool the cookies

Remove the cookies and put them on wire racks to cool. Store them loosely in an airtight container.

Editor’s Tip: The pizzelle will be a bit soft when you remove them from the maker, but they crisp up as they cool. Make a few testers to gauge the crispness for the rest of your bake.

Pizzelle Cookie Variations

• Use another extract: Let this pizzelle cookie recipe serve as a base. Anise is the traditional flavor for pizzelle, but you can use other extracts, like all vanilla or try lemon or orange.
• Make chocolate pizzelle: To make a chocolate pizzelle cookies recipe, omit the aniseed and anise extract. Add 1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder to the dry ingredients and 1/4 cup more sugar to the wet ingredients. Wait to see how crisp the first few are when they cool, then proceed with the rest of your dough.
• Dress them up: Drizzle your pizzelle cookie recipe with white or dark chocolate, then sprinkle each cookie with chopped hazelnuts, pecans or almonds. Or, roll the edges in melted chocolate and then in holiday sprinkles or colored sugar.
• Shape them: Drape still-warm cookies over the top of a glass or put them inside the wells of a muffin tin to make bowls. Or, roll them into tubes or cones. Fill the cookie vessels with everything from sweetened ricotta to chocolate gelato.

How to Store Pizzelle Cookies

After the pizzelle cookies recipe has cooled, store the cookies in an airtight container or a zip-top bag at room temperature. These cookies can soften over time, so a quality cookie saver is a good idea for keeping them crisp.

How long do pizzelle cookies last?

When stored properly, pizzelle will last up to two weeks.

Can you freeze pizzelle cookies?

You can freeze pizzelle, but they may not be as crisp as freshly made cookies. Allow the baked cookies to cool, then arrange them on a baking sheet (don’t overlap the cookies or they might stick together). Freeze for a couple of hours or overnight, then transfer them to a freezer-safe container or zip-top bag. They’ll last up to three months. To enjoy, let the cookies thaw at room temperature.

Can you make pizzelle cookies ahead of time?

You can make pizzelle dough up to a day in advance. Cover the dough tightly and store it in the refrigerator. Allow it to sit for about 30 minutes before baking in the pizzelle maker.

Pizzelle Cookie Tips

How do you know when pizzelle cookies are done cooking?

My pizzelle maker has a light that goes off when the cookies are done (or close to done) baking, but my mom taught me to look for the steam. Once the steam dissipates a bit, they’re done, which can happen anywhere between 30 and 60 seconds.

After at least 30 seconds, if you lift the top of the maker and the cookies still look a little pale, simply close it for a few more seconds until they reach the desired toasty color.

What if my pizzelle cookies stick to the maker?

To ensure your pizzelle don’t stick, brush the pizzelle maker with cooking oil or spray it with cooking spray before you start. Although every pizzelle maker is different, you should need to do this only once.

How do you get perfect edges on pizzelle cookies?

Any pizzella is a good pizzella, whether perfectly symmetrical with round edges or off-center with a jagged edge. (Mine usually look more like the latter than the former, and I’ve been making pizzelle my entire life!)

However, one way to get tight edges is to watch how much dough you put into the maker. Too little and it won’t spread to the edge; too much and it’ll overflow outside of the pattern. If your cookie dough goes out of the lines a bit and you have thin edges outside of the pattern, simply cut or break off the those edges after they’ve cooled.