4 Ingredient Italian All-Butter Christmas Cookies
Emma Fontanella’s 4-Ingredient Italian All-Butter Christmas Cookies, frolla montata
About My 4 Ingredient Italian All-Butter Christmas Cookies
I don’t about you, but I think one of the best things about the holidays is that it’s cookie baking season! These traditional Italian cookies, which are called “frolla montata” in Italy, are a piped cookie made with a whipped all-butter shortbread dough.
They’re made with just four main ingredients, and have an incredible, luxurious melt-in-your mouth texture and buttery flavor. They’re so easy to make, and so delicious, you need to add these to your holiday cookie rotation!
So, let’s make these cookies! Please don’t be daunted because they’re piped. They’re some of the easiest cookies you’ll ever make, and they don’t have to be perfectly piped! You’ll soon get the hang of it—watch my video tutorial if you want to get a feel for good piping technique.
If you like the look of these cookies, I have more cookie recipes in my cookbook, Simple Pleasures. The book even has an entire chapter on Holiday Baking.
Why this recipe works
We want these whipped shortbread cookies to be pipeable and hold their shape as they bake. We also want the cookies to have a crumbly melt-in-your-mouth texture. There are a few aspects to this recipe that are key to achieving this..
First, we use powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar. Powdered sugar contains corn starch (to stop the powered sugar setting solid in its packaging). The polysaccharides that make up cornstarch interrupt the gluten network in the shortbread dough, reducing its elasticity, and helping to prevent the cookies from spreading out as they bake. This also helps achieve a crumbly texture.
Second, we use an egg yolk. Egg yolks aren’t classically used in shortbread cookies. But this dough is different. We want to pipe it into shapes. The egg yolk helps the whipped dough to be pliable and pipeable at room temperature,
Finally, we chill the cookies prior to baking so that the butter sets solid. This allows the cookies to set during baking before the butter melts which would make the cookies lose their shape.
Variations
I like to add sprinkles to these cookies, to give them an extra Christmassy feel. Frolla montata cookies are also a great option if you like making edible gifts because they look so irresistible. You could package up a few in a clear cellophane bag with a ribbon, or make an entire cookie box! If you’re making a cookie box, you can turn it into a selection box.
You can pipe different shapes, dip some of the cookies in melted chocolate, add chopped nuts, make sandwich cookies with buttercream and/or jam, add different flavors to batches of dough e.g., vanilla extract, almond extract, lemon zest, clementine zest.
So if you’re feeling creative, you have lots of delicious options!
What is the secret to making good shortbread or good butter cookies?
It’s the combination of lots of good, salty butter and sugar which gives shortbread cookies and butter cookies their amazing flavor. Use the best quality butter you can find – the better it is, the more delicious your shortbread will be. Under no circumstances use “spreadable from the fridge” butter. You must use butter that’s hard at fridge temperature.
What is the most common mistake when making butter cookies?
The most common mistake when making butter cookies is incorporating too much flour. When you’re working the dough, try to avoid incorporating extra flour, because it will throw the recipe off and make the cookies tough.
Do butter cookies spread when baking?
If the butter in your cookie dough melts before the cookies set in the oven, the cookies will spread as they bake. To stop this happening, make sure to chill your cookies, or even freeze them, before you put them in the oven. That way, the cookies will set before the butter melts, and they will hold their shape as they bake.
Yields 20 or more cookies, depending how big you pipe them.
INGREDIENTS
1 stick (8 tbsp / 115g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup (60g) powdered sugar
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Cream the butter and sugar
Creaming and whipping the butter and sugar mixture
To a medium mixing bowl, and the room temperature butter and the powdered sugar. You must use powdered sugar for this recipe. It contains corn starch which helps create the melt-in-your-mouth texture that makes these cookies so incredible.
Using an electric hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. At this point, if you want to add a little almond extract or vanilla extract, or some lemon or clementine zest, now is the time to do it.
Mix on low speed for a few minutes to incorporate air into the mixture. It should be soft and spreadable and have a whipped texture.
Incorporate the egg yolk
Now, incorporate the room temperature egg yolk. It’s important your egg yolk is at room temperature, otherwise the butter will seize up and you won’t be able to pipe the cookie dough properly.
Add the flour
Once the egg yolk is fully combined add in the flour and salt, Mix on low speed until the dough comes together. The dough should be pipeable, but if it seems too stiff, add 1 tablespoon of warm water and incorporate that to loosen the mixture. (Don’t add more water than that, otherwise your cookies won’t hold their shape as they bake.)
Transfer the mix to a piping bag
Transfer the cookie mixture to a sturdy piping bag fitted with a large tip (I like to use a star tip). Make sure your piping bag is sturdy—you’re not piping whipped cream here! If it’s not, double up and put a second piping bag inside the first. You don’t want the bag to burst as you’re piping these cookies!
Prepare the baking sheet
Preparing the baking tray, by fixing the parchment paper down with a dollop of dough at each corner. This stops the paper moving around while piping the cookies.
Prepare your baking sheet by piping a small dollop of dough into each corner, and then place a piece of parchment paper, cut to size, onto the tray. Those dollops of dough will stop the parchment paper moving around as you’re piping the cookies.
If you want to make it easier to pipe your cookies evenly in the next step, you can draw 12 evenly spaced circles onto your parchment paper as a piping guide.
Pipe the cookies
Piping the cookies. Try to get them all the same size to ensure even baking.
Pipe the cookies into whatever shape you feel comfortable with. Try to be consistent with the shape and size. That’s not because they need to look perfect visually. It’s because we want all the cookies to bake evenly. If you have all different shapes and sizes of cookie on the baking sheet, that won’t happen!
Depending on the size and shape of your cookies, this recipe should make about 20 cookies (or a few more).
If you want to add sprinkles or chopped nuts, now is the time to add those to the top of your cookies.
Preheat the oven, and chill the cookies
The chilled cookies, ready for the oven.
Now preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C). While the oven is preheating, put your tray of cookies into the freezer. They’ll set up pretty quickly because of the high butter content. If the tray won’t fit in your freezer, you can put them in the fridge (just be aware they’ll take longer to set). You want the cookies to be rock hard before they go into the oven.
Bake the cookies
The baked cookies, ready to come out of the oven.
Bake the cookies for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. They willl turn a pale golden color when they’re ready to come out of the oven.
When they’re out of the oven, let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for at least 20 minutes to set up. If you don’t, they will fall apart when you lift them off the parchment paper.
Storing the cookies
Store these cookies at room temperature in an air tight container.
If you’d like to get some ideas for all the easy variations of these cookies you can make, please see the section above titled, “Variations”.
Watch the video for more tips
Hi! I’m Emma Fontanella. Here you’ll find trusted, tested recipes to satisfy your baking addiction and carb cravings. Learn more…
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