The Best Italian Lemon Knot Cookies

Typically made at Christmas, these Italian Lemon Knot Cookies-Taralli al Limone are soft and full of lemon flavor. One of our favorite Italian cookies!

My mom and I would bake these Taralli al Limone-Italian Lemon Knot Cookies every Chrtistmas! We would roll out the dough together into the little strands that would be shaped one after another into their familiar knotted shape. It didn’t matter if they weren’t perfect. And now my kids have learned how to bake them with me and with our friends that have Sicilian nonni (grandparents).

Christmas baking is at a feverish pace here at our Italian baking headquarters.  We are baking fiends after Halloween leading all the way up to the week of Christmas. One cookie that is a staple in our home is taralli al limone, or Italian lemon knot cookies.

ITALIAN LEMON KNOT COOKIES-TARALLI AL LIMONE

You may know them as tarallucci, anginetti-Italian lemon drop cookies, and even Italian knot cookies. I remember having them as a little girl at various Italian friends’ houses during the holidays and have fond baking memories of making them as a young girl. We also make these Cuccidati-Sicilian Fig Cookies. This post has been updated from Dec 2016.

MY FAVORITE ITALIAN CHRISTMAS DESSERTS

These Italian Lemon Knot Cookies are part of  our Favorite Italian Christmas Dessert series. Our favorite Calabrese Christmas sweets are my my Italian mother-in-law’s cherished Nocatole-Calabrian Sweet Fritters recipe and also the  Pitta ‘Impigliata-Calabrian Fruit and Nut Pastries.  One biscotti that is made every Christmas is our Hazelnut and Dried Cherry Biscotti. Soon there will be more to come to make a sweet Italian Christmas!

Nonno Sal used to have a famous local pizzeria and was quite the bread baker and sauce maker. He is a calm teacher every year letting his grandkids make the dough by themselves and he taught them to roll out the strands and shape the little rings. Nonno Sal and his wife are from a small town near Palermo and they make a different shape than what I learned how to make.

CAN I USE LEMON EXTRACT IN MY ITALIAN LEMON KNOT COOKIES?

Honestly, no. The only thing that wasn’t a hit with their batch was nonno Sal bought a pure lemon extract and added it to the lemon glaze. The flavor tasted a little off, even though he assured us by showing us the bottle that it was all natural.

I make my cookies all the time with fresh lemon zest and juice. You can’t beat the flavor of fresh lemon juice. I like the dough to taste lemony as well and sometimes add the zest of 2 lemons to the dough (if I bought enough lemons). It’s always better to use organic if you can find them.

TIPS ON HOW TO MAKE ITALIAN LEMON KNOT COOKIES?

The dough is super easy to put together. But these baking tips will help you make the BEST Italian Christmas cookies!

As I mentioned in the post, the kids even put it together by hand, without using a mixer. It doesn’t have any fancy steps and it is hard to mess it up.

When the kids made the dough with their nonno, they didn’t even rest the dough in the fridge, they started baking the cookies right away and they turned out great!

As for the lemon flavor, I like my cookies with more lemon flavor and even add lemon zest to the glaze. That is up to you if you want to add zest to the glaze.

You can make it as lemony flavored as you like it, but be sure to use fresh lemon juice and if you can use organic for the zest, that is the best for this recipe.

Ingredients

DOUGH

• 4 cups flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• zest and juice of one lemon I used organic

LEMON GLAZE

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice plus more if necessary
• zest of lemon

Share this post