What Are Italian Jelly-Filled Cookies? (Plus a Recipe)

What are Italian Jelly-Filled Cookies? 

Italian jelly-filled cookies are soft and flavorful cookies. They are effortless to prepare, and you’ll never buy them from a store or a bakery again after reading this article. 

A sandwich cookie, also known as a sandwich biscuit, consists of two thin or medium cookies put together with a filling. Cream, ganache, buttercream, chocolate, cream cheese, jam, peanut butter, lemon curd, or ice cream are among the fillings you can use.

A Recipe for Italian Jelly Cookies

Prep Time: 1 hr 50 min (includes cooling time)

Cook Time: 45 min

Serving Size: about two dozen cookies

Nutritional Facts

For a Serving Size of two cookies (35g)

• Calories 170
• Calories from Fat 81
• Total Fat 9g
• Saturated Fat 3.5g
• Cholesterol 5mg
• Sodium 100mg
• Potassium 20mg
• Carbohydrates 20g
• Net carbs 20g
• Fiber 0g
• Glucose 10g
• Protein 1g
• Vitamin A 0mg
• Vitamin C 0mg
• Calcium 0mg
• Iron 0mg

Equipment Needed

A pastry bag or cookie press fitted with a star tip.

Ingredients

• 3 sticks of unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup raspberry jam
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon canola oil 
• Rainbow sprinkles for decorating

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream the butter, sugar, and salt together in a medium speed mix for four minutes or until very fluffy. After adding the vanilla and eggs, continue to beat for another four minutes, scraping down the sides at least once. Reduce the mixer’s speed to low and add the flour and baking powder, mixing until combined.
3. Fill a pastry bag or cookie press (fitted with a star tip) with the dough. Pipe cookies in 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) lines on an ungreased cookie sheet, spacing them at least 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) apart.
4. Place for five minutes in the freezer (this will help them retain their shape when baking).
5. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
6. Allow three minutes for the cookie sheets to cool before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely. To make sandwiches, spread a little more than half a teaspoon of jam on half of the cookies, then top with the remaining cookies. While preparing the chocolate, place it in the freezer for another five minutes to help it set.
7. Combine the chocolate and the oil in a microwave-safe mug and mix well. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each until completely melted. On a plate, spread out the rainbow sprinkles.
8. Dip the cookies halfway into the chocolate, then roll in the sprinkles, working quickly.
9. Place the finished cookies on a tray lined with wax or parchment paper. To set completely In an airtight container, cookies will last for about a week.

The Origins of Italian Jelly-Filled Cookies

There are many varieties of Italian cookies with jelly originating from Denmark, France, and other parts. Butter Cookies (or butter biscuits), also known as Danish biscuits, are butter, flour, and sugar cookies originating from Denmark. Sablés, however, are butter cookies originating from France.

Because of its texture, that gets influence by the amount of butter and sugar that you use. Many refer to it as a “crisp cookie.” To allow for proper manipulation and handling during preparation, you should chill the dough.

Butter cookies are flavorless at their most basic, but they are frequently flavored with vanilla, chocolate, or coconut and/or topped with sugar crystals. They also come in various shapes and appearances, such as circles, squares, ovals, rings, and pretzel-like forms, as well as marble, checker, and plain.

You can make different shapes with piping bags. Butter cookies are popular during the Christmas season in some parts of the world, such as Europe and North America. In Hong Kong, butter cookies are also a popular gift, particularly during Chinese New Year.

Types of Italian Cookies

There are various types of Italian cookies that you can prepare easily using an Italian cookies recipe of your choice. Some of the best Italian cookies varieties you can find include:

Mustazzola

Mustazzola are traditional Italian cookies that are especially popular in the town of Sicily. 

This is a delicate pastry full of semolina, almonds, grated lemon or orange zest, cinnamon, and other spices. You can make it in three versions: one sweetened with honey, another with mosto cotto (cooked grape juice), and a third with carob syrup, a cheap substitute for the expensive honey.

Mustazzola, a traditional sweet treat made for Christmas and the Feast of St. Joseph, is now rare and difficult to come by; even in Scicli, only a few pastry shops still make it.

Canestrelli di Castagne

This is a unique variety of canestrelli cookies that you can make with chestnut flour. You can find it in Liguria, particularly in the area around Montoggio. These buttery cookies with a distinctive flavor of chestnut and honey were once poor man’s cookies with locally available ingredients, but now they are among the most famous local treats.

Their preparation is meticulous: you must knead the dough by hand, let it rest for a long period, and then bake it in wood-fire ovens.

Mastazzola di Riesi

Mastazzola is a traditional Italian cookie made in several Italian regions that gets its name from mustaceum, a sweet, ancient Roman focaccia with a grape flavor. You must bake it under bay leaves. 

Whole-wheat flour, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, almonds, and orange zest are common ingredients you use during preparation. However, the variety from Riesi in the Italian province of Caltanissetta is unique due to the addition of carob syrup, which gives them a rich and distinct flavor.

Many people make these traditional cookies at home during the festive Christmas season, but you can also find them in a few local bakeries.

Mandorlotti

Mandorlotti are crispy almond cookies from Romagna, specifically the area between Gatteo, Sala di Cesenatico, and Gambettola in the province of Forl-Cesena, similar to the more famous fave dei morti. You can make mandorlotti with flour, sugar, egg whites, and coarsely chopped almonds. You then top it with a whole almond before baking it until crispy.

They go well with sweet white wines when you lightly dust them with sugar powder.

Canestrelli Biellesi

Piedmontese town of Biella makes Canestrelli Biellesi Since the 1800s. They consist of two thin, crispy chocolate wafers with a chocolate-hazelnut cream layer. 

The people in the region even protect this decadent chocolate cookie as a regional traditional agricultural product. To ensure its authenticity, they stamp the top wafer with a canestrelli Biella mark, along with the name of the pastry shop that made it.

Amaretti (Lazio)

Amaretti, the famous Italian almond cookies, are so prevalent in their homeland that nearly every region has its version, with different proportions and combinations of the primary ingredients: sweet and bitter almonds, apricot kernels, eggs, and sugar.

The soft oval-shaped amaretti of Guarcino that you make with sweet and bitter almonds, fresh egg whites, sugar powder, a dash of salt, and bake on a wafer paper disc are especially popular in Lazio. 

The amaretti casperiani contain egg whites, sugar, almond essence, vanilla, and hazelnuts instead of almonds in Casperia, a municipality in Rieti.

Sospiri di Ozieri

Sospiri di Ozieri are traditional sweets from Ozieri, a town in Sardinia. You can bake these cookies and top them with a white sugary glaze that you make with sweet and bitter almonds, sugar powder, milefiori honey, lemon zest, and water.

The recipe for sospiri di Ozieri dates from the nineteenth century; these rich cookies were traditionally a serving at weddings, primarily to noble families who could afford such decadent and costly treatments.

Biscotti del Lagaccio

Biscotti del Lagaccio, a cross between a cookie and a rusk, gets its name from a Genoese quarter where they were allegedly originating around 1593. They were simple biscuits with only flour, butter, yeast, and sugar as ingredients, but over time, they included wild fennel seeds and a few drops of anise liqueur in their recipe w, giving them their distinctive flavor.

Biscotti del Lagaccio are delicately sweet and make a great breakfast or afternoon snack, especially when you pair them with a cup of caffè latte or tea.

Conclusion

These delicious Italian jelly cookies are simple to make, yield a large quantity, and are the cutest little cookies to give as a gift! You can make them at home using authentic Italian cookie recipes. Try spritz cookies, no roll sugar cookies, or turtle thumbprint cookies for more giftable cookies.

Traditional Italian cookies usually have an anise flavor. Still, suppose no one in your family enjoys the taste of black licorice. In that case, you can substitute it with almond, which is a common substitute for a more Americanized Italian cookie version. If you don’t like anise or almond, use vanilla instead.

We love that these cookies are easy to make, tasty, and attractive. They’re perfect for parties or even holiday gatherings. Who can say no to a cookie with glaze and sprinkles? To keep their crunchy nature, store them in an airtight container for up to five days or freeze them for up to three months in an airtight container.