In Italian culture, a celebration seems not complete without a cookie tray. Among enormous dishes of Italian dessert culinary, cookies are the most desired food that occupies the heart of many gourmets. Various Italian cookies could suit many occasions but do not require complicated skill to bake. Therefore, this article will share 10 cookbooks about Italian cookie so that you could find out how to make them at home.
Sweet Maria’s Italian Cookie Tray: A Cookbook
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“Bought this as a gift for my parents. And then I stole it back because I loved it so much. Over Christmas, I made pizzelles and almond macarons from the book; both came out great!” – Buy All The Things
Sweet Maria’s Italian Cookie Tray demonstrates 65 recipes for yummy festive cookies people could enjoy at the holiday or even all year-round. At the age of twenty-six years old, Maria Bruscino Sanchez had opened Sweet Maria’s bakery specializing in authentic Italian cookies and cake thanks to the recipes passed along from family.
The business is more and more flourished, and the unique book had been published. The recipes range from molded and filled cookies, biscotti, taralle and biscuits to pizzelles, and more. All of them are easy to prepare and perfect for enjoyment at any time (both holiday and daily).
Some types of cookie they offer are Almond Crescents, Lemon Drop Cookies, Chocolate Almond Macaroons, Pignoli Nut Cookies, Amaretto Biscotti Sesame Cookies, Sweet Ravioli Cookies, Florentines, Lady Fingers, Christmas Honey Clusters and more.
No matter who you are, a person growing up in Italy, or just a cookie lover, this fantastic collection is sure to become a book that you return again and again.
About the Author: Maria Bruscino Sanchez is the owner and baker at Sweet Maria’s bakery in Waterbury, Connecticut. Besides Sweet Maria’s Italian Cookie Tray, she is also the author of other popular books as The New Lasagna Cookbook, Sweet Maria’s Cookie Jar, Sweet Maria’s Cake Kitchen, and Sweet Maria’s Italian Desserts.
The Italian Baker
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“I am a pastry chef and used my old copy of this book until it fell apart. Purchased the original copy rather than the updated version as pictures are not required. I have made so many of the recipes over the years. I am currently using the focaccia recipe in the restaurant, and it is so very good! Every recipe from this book is wonderful!” – Susan
Generally, bread and cookies vary dramatically in shape and taste from region to region. More than that, the occasion when they are made also contributes to the different recipes in baking tradition.
Behind each kind of local specialties is a story that people have to travel throughout the Italian countryside. Knowing and putting the methods on paper, Carol Field has succeeded in preserving the Italian village’s culture that has never documented before.
To prepare for this book, Carol Field spent two years working with the Italian bakers and continuously crossing the country from Lugano and Como in the North to Lecce and Palermo in the South. In that process, she keeps tasting and testing then try to adapt the recipes with American ingredient in an American kitchen.
Finally, her attempt seems to be fruitful with the ultimate recipes written for absolute ease and flexibility. Those earthy and elegant recipes become another source for Americans, not the limited, stereotyped range until now.
Each method provides clear step-to-step instructions with ingredients and equipment for making the dough by hand or electric mixer depending on your conditions.
About the Author: Carol Field is the writer of four cookbooks: In Nonna’s Kitchen, Focaccia, Celebrating Italy, and The Italian Baker, as well as a novel named The Hill Towns of Italy and Mangoes and Quince.
She has been prized two IACP Cookbook Book Awards and a James Beard Award, then the Gold Medal for Cookbooks at the World Media Awards in Australia. She keeps traveling back and forth to Italy while living in San Fransico with her architect husband.
Dolci: Italy’s Sweets
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“Can’t thank this author enough. Good read along with fantastic recipes I’ve used hundreds of times. Some of the best authentic Italian recipes ever.” – E
Dolci: Italy’s Sweets is valued as a lavishly illuminated Italy tour through more than 100 recipes for cookies, cakes, pudding, pastries, and more.
To draw a gastronomy panorama of all Italy regions, Dolci gathers recipes from grandmas in remote villages to young bloggers, small local coffee shop, and acclaimed pastry chefs. Some classics like Cannoli and Zuppa Inglese are highlighted along with exceptional local beloveds like Sweet Rosemary and Chocolate Eggplant.
Dolci collects recipes from grandmas in remote villages as well as hip young bloggers, world-renowned pastry chefs, and small local cafés. Classics like Cannoli and Zuppa Inglese are featured alongside unique regional favorites like Sweet Rosemary and Chocolate Eggplant.
This cookbook also renews few historical recipes in Italian food lore as offering “updated” Tiramisù recipe that doesn’t use raw eggs or unexpected frozen delights like Spumone with Homemade Hazelnut Brittle and many other alluring Italian treats.
In the end, the book is wrapped up by a chapter about after-dinner drinks providing “a canon of authentic recipes collected from the people who use them” (The Wall Street Journal).
About the Author: Francine Segan is a food historian and the author of four cookbooks, and her The Opera Lover’s Cookbook was nominated for James Beard Award and went to the IACP award finalist. She lives in New York City and works as the food and home editor for Betty Confidential.
Ciao Biscotti: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Celebrating Italy’s Favorite Cookie
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“I must admit to being quite impressed. Tired of my day in and day out cookies (brownies and choc. chip), I wanted to try another favorite (biscotti). I do have another specialized Biscotti book, but this looked too good to pass up.” – Maggie Perkins
Ciao Biscotti is a collection of 44 authentic biscotti recipes from Domenica Marchetti, an Italian cooking expert. Biscotti is Italy’s unique twice-baked cookies that have a crunchy, toasty with lasting appeal.
Sprinkled with nuts, decorated with chocolate, or dotted with dried fruit, biscotti is perfect for dunking into coffee, tea, Vin Santo, or turning a simple ice cream bowl into a special dessert. With delicious ingredients exchanged for the sweet ones, biscotti is ready to appear on a cheese platter.
About the Author: Domenica Marchetti ever worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming the writer of four cookbooks: The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy; Big Night In: More Than 100 Wonderful Recipes for Feeding Family and Friends Italian Style; The Glorious Pasta of Italy (named one of the eight best single-subject cookbooks of the last 25 years by the editors of Cooking Light); and The Glorious Vegetables of Italy.
Her articles and recipes have been posted in many newspapers such as The Washington Post, Food and Wine, Fine Cooking, Cooking Light, Leite’s Culinaria, and NPR.org’s Kitchen Window. She is one of the founders of American Food Roots, the new online magazine launched in October 2012 to discover why and what we eat. Her website is www.domenicacooks.com, where she blogs about Italian home cooking.
Nonna’s Way, A Collection of Classic Italian Cookie Recipes
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“Being Italian, best cookie cookbook ever!” – Pam D
Nonnas’s Way: A Collection of Classic Italian Cookies is a book that teaches you to bake for over 50 favorite Italian cookies straight from granny’s kitchen.
If you grew up in Italy or had a chance to experience the culture, you might know that no Italian celebration is complete without a cookie tray. With beautiful demonstrated photos and uncomplicated recipes to follow, even a beginner could enjoy making cookies.
Originally, Nona’s Way is a blog devoted to capturing and saving Italian recipes, culture, and traditions created by Angela DeSalvo and Anna Romano.
Angela and Anna visited several nonnas’ kitchens to capture and transcribe their treasured recipes. Some recipes are so old that they appeared in many previous generations, while others have been modified for years. By doing that, Angela and Anna hope to inspire readers to make memories with your own families and keep the Italian traditions alive.
About the Author: Angela DeSalvo is a professional photographer, and Anna Romano is a community pharmacist. They met when working as volunteers on a local Italian cultural committee and found the same passion in sharing cookie recipes from their parents’ and grandparents’ past.
Their first cookbook is entitled “A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That from Nonna’s Kitchen.” After receiving numerous requests from blog readers, they have fine-tuned the recipes more with precise quantities of ingredients and published the Nonnas’s Way: A Collection of Classic Italian Cookies.
The Italian Baker, Revised: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside–Its Bread, Pizza, Focaccia, Cakes, Pastries, and Cookies [A Baking Book]
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“Some really wonderful bread recipes.” – A. M. Glaeser
This book is the updated version for the first one, which is The Baker in 1995. Being written comprehensively in either English or Italian, the book covers the whole range of Italian baking from breadsticks and cornetti to focaccia, tarts, cakes, and pastries. New recipes, ingredients and equipment sections, source guides, and weights plus lively photography has been added to this latest version.
Spending more than two years traveling all over Italy, Carol Field has experienced the regional specialties and tested it later in her American kitchen to bring the recipes into real for anyone seeking the authentic Italian.
In this baking book, she introduces artisanal doughs and techniques used by generations of Italian bakers. If you intend to become a serious baker, you could ignore this one of the best inevitable baking books of all time prized by the International Association of Culinary Professionals Award.
About the Author: Carol Field is the writer of five cookbooks, In Nonna’s Kitchen, Focaccia, Italy in Small Bites, Celebrating Italy, and The Italian Baker, as well as The Hill Towns of Italy and Mangoes and Quince novel.
She is an honored journalist and has contributed to Bon Appétit, Gourmet, and Food and Wine. Carol Field was invited to feature on the PBS series “In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs.” She lives in San Francisco but continues to visit Italy usually.
Biscotti: Recipes from the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome, Rome Sustainable Food Project
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“This is a small book, but I was very pleased by the number and variety of Italian cookie recipes it contained (and not just what you may know as a “biscotti”). And I’m a big cookie baker who already has over 50 cookie cookbooks!” – Nancy
Biscotti is the first book in the series belong to The Rome Sustainable Food Project, a program dedicated to providing organic, local, and sustainable food for the society of the American Academy in Rome.
The book covers a subject about biscotti and dolcetti (cookies and sweets) and contains 50 authentic, simple recipes. The techniques and methods are carefully explained for both home cook and the institutional kitchen.
About the Author: This book is made of two co-authors Mona Talbott’s, Mirella Misenti, with the photography by Annie Schlechter and the foreword by Alice Waters.
Mona Talbott’s first food-related job was working in large reforestation camps in Canada. After working at Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard program and as a consultant for Hillary Clinton at her home, she was hired to design a children’s gardening and cooking program in 2004.
Since 2007, Talbott has been an executive chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Project and published articles and recipes in Saveur, Organic Style, and The New York Times.
Mirella Misenti is the pastry chef at the American Academy in Rome.
Alice Waters is a chef, an author, and also the Vice President of Slow Food International. She is an American pioneer of a culinary philosophy that cooking should be based on the purest and freshest seasonal ingredients produced sustainably and locally.
In 1996, she established the Chez Panisse Foundation to support the Schoolyard and encourage the same programs that use food traditions to teach, nurture, and empower youth. Her latest book is In the Green Kitchen, released in April 2010.
Annie Schlechter has been a photographer since 1998 and worked with some big clients like The World of Interiors, Wallpaper, House Beautiful, Real Simple, W magazine, Travel & Leisure, and many more.
Sweet Maria’s Italian Desserts: Classic and Casual Recipes for Cookies, Cakes, Pastry, and Other Favorites
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“Full of great recipes! It’s the only Italian dessert cookbook you’ll ever need!” – Erin Stricklin
Sweet Maria’s Italian Desserts is the excellent contribution of Maria Bruscino Sanchez to the desserts you’ll find in Italy or Italian-American homes on special occasions or even any day of the year.
These are festive beloveds like Traditional Cannoli, Espresso Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Amaretto Chiffon Cake, Spiced Gelato, and some others. The book is the result of years she spent baking in the kitchens with her grandma, mother, and aunts. From cookies, cakes, pies, tarts, pastry, frozen desserts, fruit dishes, and others, all are included in the book with tradition and a love of fabulous desserts.
Forming with simple instructions, bakery’s tips, and necessary information on the customs and history of the desserts, you could easily apply these recipes and bring tasty favorites to your kitchen.
About the Author: Maria Bruscino Sanchez lives in Waterbury, Connecticut, where she is the owner and baker at Sweet Maria’s bakery. Her book, Sweet Maria’s Cake Kitchen, was included in The Best American Recipes 1999.
Southern Italian Desserts: Rediscovering the Sweet Traditions of Calabria, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, and Sicily [A Baking Book]
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“I have really enjoyed this book. The recipes come out great. Lots of useful information and it’s a good read. I work as a baker at an Italian restaurant and we have used many recipes from this book and reference it to keep our dessert menu traditional Italian” – Kate
This book introduces an authoritative guide to the festive, delicious sweets of regional specialties in Southern Italy that people might not know as well as different versions of popular desserts like cannoli, biscotti, and gelato.
Rosetta Costantino collects 75 favorite sweet treats from her Southern Italian hometown, including Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Puglia, and Sicily. These areas have rich traditional history and tasty, beautiful desserts that many of them associated with holidays and festivals.
For example, Christmas means plates piled with grispelle (warm pancakes drizzled with local honey) and pitta ‘mpigliata (pastries filled with walnuts, raisins, and cinnamon) in the Cosenza region of Calabria.
About the Author: The book is co-written by two authors who are Rosetta Costantino and Jennie Schacht.
Rosetta Costantino was born and raised in Verbicaro, Calabria then moved to Oakland, California with her parents when she is fourteen. She got a chemical engineering degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and working in Silicon Valley for twenty years.
At the moment, she opens her cooking classes and shares the techniques and tastes of the traditional Calabrian kitchen. Her other book, My Calabria: Rustic Family Cooking, was nominated for an IACP award in 2011. Rosetta lives with her husband and two children in Oakland. You could learn more at her website cookingwithrosetta.com.
Jennie Schacht is a culinary writer and consultant based in Oakland, California. She composes many books about cuisine such as Farmers’ Market Desserts, Wine Lover’s Dessert Cookbook, Without Reservations, and Sweet & Skinny.
Authentic Italian Desserts: 75 Traditional Favorites Made Easy
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“A great cookbook to add to my collection. The recipes are easy to understand. Great for home cooks.” – Amazon Customer
With the book, Rosemary Molloy takes you on a culinary journey through Italy’s cities and countryside. You will find out how to make incredible classics like biscotti and tiramisu. You can dunk in the morning coffee and Italian butter cookies by turning over pages of this book.
The diverse baking traditions of Italy that the author brings could satisfy a crowd or even a sweet tooth. The recipes are simple to apply and require little time to prepare.
About the Author: Rosemary Molloy is the creator of An Italian in My Kitchen, the famous Italian food blog. After moving from Toronto with her husband, she has lived in Rome for more than 25 years.
We hope you like this post and finally find out your favorite Italian cookie cookbooks. Meanwhile, we welcome you to explore our site and discover more cookbook recommendations from the same cuisine below.
