Hippity hoppity Easter’s on its way! Today I woke up to the smell of my mom baking cookies! I came downstairs and she was baking my grandma Monachino’s famous Easter cookies. Unfortunately, my grandma is not with us today, but that doesn’t mean we don’t carry on her traditions. These Easter cookies are so buttery and sweet, perfect for dipping in coffee. Normally around Easter time, my grandma would bake these cookies but she would bake them a little differently than my mom did today. 

It is an Italian tradition to bake Easter cookies and bread into the shape of baskets. We boil eggs, color them and form the dough around the egg to look like an egg in a basket! These cookies are too adorable and will make you smile while eating them. 🙂 Instead of making the Easter baskets out of dough, my mom just decided to cut out the cookies into the shape of eggs. Not the same but just as yummy. Let’s get to the recipe…

Ingredients:

For the Cookies: 

1 cup of butter

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

2 tsp.vanilla extract 

½ tsp.anise

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp.salt

3 cups flour

For the Icing:

2 cups confectioners sugar

3 tbsp.milk

½ tsp.vanilla

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugar and egg until fully combined.
  3. Add the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixture and combine thoroughly.
  4. Once all the ingredients are combined, form the dough into a ball, wrap it up and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.
  5. Once the hour is up, roll out your dough and start cutting out shapes with cookie cutters!
  6. Place the cut dough onto cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes.
  7. To make the icing, there is no particular order for mixing the ingredients! Just combine them all and add more or less milk or sugar for the desired consistency.   
  8. Ice your cookies, decorate, and enjoy!!