My Pizzelle Recipe

My husband is Italian and his grandmother introduced me to pizzelles many years ago when we were dating. These wafer-thin disc-shaped Italian cookies are easy to make and so beautiful. With their intricately patterned appearance, they often resemble a doily, snowflake, waffle, or geometric design. There was always a stack of them at my husband's family's Christmas Eve celebrations and, his grandma insisted that almond extract is better than anise and that lemon is not necessary, so that's how I make them. Here is my recipe:

Pizzelles

You Will Need

pizzelle maker or iron (CLICK HERE for a link to the one I use)
hand or stand mixer

Ingredients

• 2 c all purpose flour
• 1 c sugar
• 4  eggs, room temperature
• 1 tbspn almond extract
• 2 tspn baking powder
• a pinch or two of salt

• ¾ c salted butter, melted and cooled

•  

  powdered confectioners sugar to spinkle on top of finished and cooled cookies

To Make

1. Mix eggs and sugar together until well combined. Add butter and almond extract until well combined. Then mix in flour, baking powder and salt.
2. Preheat your pizzelle iron. 
3. Drop a silver-dollar-sized dollop of batter in the center of each iron pattern, close, and lock (if it has a lock). 
4. Bake for 40-45 seconds, if using the griddle linked above. Otherwise, you may need to test your pizzelle maker to find the right amount of time to cook them. Look for them to cook through but not brown. Typically 30-60 seconds. 
5. Open the pizzelle maker and carefully remove each pizzelle with a fork and lay them flat on a drying rack. 
6. Repeat to use the remainder of the batter.
7. Once the cookies are completely cooled (wait 10 minutes or more), sprinkle cooled cookies with powdered confectioners sugar using a sift. 

This recipe yields approximately 30 (or more) delicate discs.

Tips and Tricks

If you find that your batter oozes out the sides of the pizzelle maker when you secure it closed, slightly decrease the size of your dollop.

If your pizzelles begin to stick to the iron, add a bit more cooking spray, though I find that the initial spray typically gets me through the entire batch.

Pizzelles should be crisp, delicate, and brittle. If your pizzelle does not cool to a crisp delicate cookie, add 10 seconds to the baking time in the iron.

Using kitchen shears, trim access batter from the edges of the design to trim off the excess from the design as needed, or tap to break the excess edges off with a fork.

Store pizzelles in a parchment paper-lined cookie tin and enjoy or gift within 5 days.