Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe

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Easy and quick, this is the best Italian Wedding Cookies recipe ever. Loaded with walnuts and hazelnuts and coated in fluffy powder sugar like a snowball, these Italian cookies melt in your mouth and are sure to steal everybody’s heart!

White Serving Tray of Italian Wedding Cookies Coated in Powdered Sugar

Italian Wedding Cookies

I know this is random you guys, and although I have made and photographed more than 5 recipes this week, today I bring to you the best Christmas Cookies, otherwise known as butterball or Russian Tea Cakes!

Because last night I started craving cookies, so weir, so random, but I couldn’t help it. And then I remembered I stocked up on organic butter at the market last week because it was something like 50% off. Clearly the cookies were begging to be made!

So here I am, cleaning little cookie crumbs out of my keyboard while I rush to share this easy recipe with you.

Italian Wedding Cookies Coated in Powdered Sugar

Let me be more specific: stupidly easy Italian wedding cookies recipe, you just can’t fail at this!

  1. Basically I make everything in the bowl of my Kitchen Aid mixer, just whisk all ingredients together, one by one until combined.
  2. Shape the dough into golfball size balls and bake for 20 minutes, no need to chill the dough. I made about 45 cookies out of one batch of dough, I suspect you could shape them even smaller and end up with about 55. Patience was not my virtue yesterday. See what you can master friends!
  3. Coat your cookies like crazy in tons of powder sugar and indulge!

White Serving Tray of Italian Wedding Cookies Coated in Powdered Sugar

 

What Makes this the Best Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe is All that Butter

  • Good organic butter from pasture raised cows, and the magic of walnuts and hazelnuts mixed together in the perfect ratio for that je ne sais quoi deliciousness.
  • Vegan – You can make them totally vegan by using your favorite cultured plant based butter!
  • If there are 4 cookie recipes one must master and keep in their life is this one, the Ricciarelli, rosemary shortbread cookies + of course the fluffy ricotta cookies.

Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe

Recipe Tips

  • Do not grease the cookies sheet before baking, these are butter cookies, already perfectly coated and won’t stick. You can use parchment paper to line the baking sheet if desired.
  • Texture – If grinding the nuts yourself use a food processor and make sure to leave a little bit of texture. You don’t want nut flour, just ground nuts with a little rustic texture.
  • Nuts – Feel free to replace the walnuts and hazelnuts in the recipe with an equal amount of ground pistachios or almonds, or a mixture of both.
  • Extract – If a strong almond flavor is desires, simply replace the vanilla extract with almond extract.
  • Powder Sugar – Make sure to coat your cookies while still warm so the sugar sticks nicely.
  • Storage – Store your cookies at room temperature on the kitchen counter loosely covered with aluminum foil or in airtight containers. You could also freeze the dough balls if desired for baking at a later time. No need to thaw them out before baking.

 

Italian Wedding Cookies

Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe
5 from 8 votes

Italian Wedding Cookies Recipe

Easy and quick, this is the best Italian wedding cookies recipe. Packed with walnuts & hazelnuts then coated in powder sugar like a snowball.
Print Recipe
Prep Time:10 minutes
Cook Time:20 minutes
Total Time:30 minutes

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat your oven to 325”F.
  • In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and 3/4 cup of the powder sugar until fluffy.
    1 1/2 cup salted butter, 3/4 cup powder sugar
  • Add the vanilla extract and little by little the ground walnuts and hazelnuts. Mix until combined.
    4 tsp vanilla extract, 3/4 cup ground walnuts, 3/4 cup ground hazelnuts
  • Start adding in the flour little by little until mixed in. ( For easier handling freeze or refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes or so)
    3 cup all purpose flour
  • Prepare your largest cookie sheet and using a small spoon (or small ice-cream scoop) form the cookies into balls, the size of a golfball or smaller. You should have about 45 cookies.
  • Arrange all the cookies on the baking sheet without touching each other.
  • Bake the cookies in the preheated 325”F oven for 20 minutes.
  • Remove the wedding cookies from the oven and allow them to cool off for a few minutes before rolling them over in the reserved powder sugar. It's best that they are still a little bit warm so the sugar coating sticks nicely.
    1/2 cup powder sugar for dusting
  • Arrange the cookies on a platter and dust with more powder sugar on top before serving.

Video

Notes

  • Do not grease the cookies sheet before baking, these are butter cookies, already perfectly coated and won't stick. You can use parchment paper to line the baking sheet if desired.
  • Texture - If grinding the nuts yourself use a food processor and make sure to leave a little bit of texture. You don't want nut flour, just ground nuts with a little rustic texture.
  • Nuts - Feel free to replace the walnuts and hazelnuts in the recipe with an equal amount of ground pistachios or almonds, or a mixture of both.
  • Extract - If a strong almond flavor is desires, simply replace the vanilla extract with almond extract.
  • Powder Sugar - Make sure to coat your cookies while still warm so the sugar sticks nicely.
  • Storage - Store your cookies at room temperature on the kitchen counter loosely covered with aluminum foil or in airtight containers. You could also freeze the dough balls if desired for baking at a later time. No need to thaw them out before baking.
  • Vegan - the cookies can be made totally vegan by swapping the dairy butter with cultured plant based butter. You'll never know the difference!

Nutrition

Serving: 5g | Calories: 507.1kcal | Carbohydrates: 42.5g | Protein: 5.9g | Fat: 35.4g | Saturated Fat: 18.2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 14.7g | Cholesterol: 74.3mg | Sodium: 197.3mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 12.5g
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Christmas cookies, Italian cookies, wedding cookies
Servings: 45 cookies
Calories: 507.1kcal
Author: Florentina

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26 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    My first time making these cookies I wish I would of seen the recipe for Christmas cookies, I’ll be making them again before I even think of my Christmas cookies. They are delicious.

  2. 5 stars
    Made these with vegan butter sticks and they turned out incredible. This is the winner Christmas cookie recipe I’ll be gifting this year as everyone raves about them long after they were gone. Thank you for this lovely recipe!

  3. Hello, have made these for so many yr. but tried your recipe this time and had a bit of a issues, they flattened out and where way to fragil to roll in surgery. Thought ?

    1. Hi Therese, not sure what went wrong there, they are crumbly melt in your mouth cookies from all that butter. You do need to allow them to cool some before rolling in the powdered sugar. So maybe just give them a little extra time…It is normal for them to flatten a bit as there is no baking powder or soda in the recipe, so you will have a flat bottom and a little bit of a dome shape on top. I would also suggest to make sure you are using a light all purpose fresh flour. ~ Florentina

  4. 5 stars
    Those cookies look so delicate and so fantastic! I’ve never, ever tried my hand at Italian wedding cookies…..I’m going to have to now! I’ve been buying Amish butter from my local Harris Teeter….I bet it’d be awesome in this recipe.