Iced Italian cookies, lemon drops, lemon knots, wedding knots or anginetti, whatever your family calls them you’ll be sure to find these traditional Italian cookies at many special occasions and holiday cookie trays. Like most Italian cookies the cookie itself is not too sweet, it has a nice moist crumb and by frosting it you’ll get a more intense lemon flavor, which is a good thing!
They’re like little puffs, they look the same color from the raw to baked state except they’ll get puffier and golden brown on the bottom.
Honestly, there are so many variations to this cookie, just do a Google search and you’ll see what I mean, but the general idea remains the same. In the past I’ve made them with Crisco shortening, that’s what they used back in the day, then I tried some Organic non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening, which quite honestly turned out a little drier, I think if I upped the amount they would have been better, but this time I used all butter.
You’ll also see other flavorings used such as almond and anise as well as different colored frosting’s and sprinkles, but my family always sticks with lemon.
Instead of colored sprinkles which I normally use, this time I wanted to do a white on white look by using tiny white non-parells and white sparkling sugar and a little lemon zest for garnish, but you can just stir some zest into your frosting instead.
Speaking of frosting, this time I tried a limoncello frosting which was very good but the traditional with extract, lemon juice and zest is just as good!
It’s time to get baking!
- 5 cups of all purpose, unbleached flour
- 5 teaspoons of baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- one and one half cups of melted butter that has cooled down, not hot. Or you can use a vegetable shortening of your choice
- 1 cup of milk
- a pinch of salt
- zest of 1 lemon for cookie and zest of 1 lemon for icing
- 1 1oz. bottle of lemon extract
- sprinkles of your choice
