If you’re looking for a specialty cookie for wedding and bridal shower season — or just for spring and summer — Lina (Marchetti) Reisigl, founder and CEO of Lina’s Crema di Limoncello, has just the option for you.
She’s developed a “twist” on traditional Tarallucci al Limone (Italian Lemon Knot Cookies) implementing her limoncello as a key ingredient. These cookies offer subtle lemon notes and are buttery with an extra pop of lemon thanks to glaze made with Lina’s.
The cookies, Reisigl tells Appetito, are transportive. Eating one feels “like you've been transported to a pasticceria on the Amalfi Coast,” she says.
While baking, she advises chilling the dough to make the shaping process easier. It’s important to keep the cookies around the same size so they bake evenly, she says.
Once decorated and ready to eat, these cookies can be served solo or paired with coffee, tea or, of course, Lina’s.
Lina's Love Knot Cookies
18-24
servings1
hour15
minutesIngredients
½ cup Lina’s Crema di Limoncello
½ cup butter (room temp)
½ cup shortening
1/8 tsp 1/8 salt
2 2 eggs
½ cup sugar
4 cups 4 flour
4 tsp 4 baking powder
4 Tbsp 4 fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Tbsp 4 grated lemon zest (plus more for garnish)
Directions
- Combine butter, shortening and sugar, beat 1-2 minutes until well combined and a little fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add in the Lina’s, lemon juice and lemon zest mixing until well combined. Stir in the baking powder and add flour in thirds, beating and scraping after each addition.
- Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes before shaping, this will make dough easier to handle.
- Measure out ¾ ounce dough balls and roll out to 6” long and they will be approx. ½ diameter. Note: I find weighing the dough helps keep cookies consistent in size and therefore cook more evenly. If not, a 1-1/4” ball of dough is approximately ¾ ounces.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Shape cookies by taking one end and standing up a little to form the top “knot” (1/2” or so) and wrap the cookie dough around the knot in pinwheel fashion. When done, tuck the other end on top next to the original “knot” to hold it in place.
- Bake for 12-15 mins depending on your oven. Check at the 12 min mark to avoid overcooking, these will brown quickly once they get to that point.
- for the Glaze
- Mix sifted confectioners sugar with Lina’s Crema di Limoncello to make glaze. Start with 2/3 cup sugar and add 2 Tablespoons Lina’s, mix well with a spoon. Then add Lina’s in drops to adjust and thin as needed for desired glaze consistency. NOTE: I like thin glaze but you can adjust to your taste. The glaze will start to firm up so you may need to add more Lina’s to thin out.
- Turn taralli upside down and twirl gently in glaze, let excess drip off and put on a cooling rack with cookie sheet underneath to catch drips. Alternatively you can brush on glaze with a pastry brush.
- Decorate
- Glaze dries quickly so be ready to add colored or white nonpareils, lemon zest, etc for garnish as soon as they are dipped.
- When the glaze is dry and firm, store in a container with a lid.
Notes
- Makes 18-24 cookies depending on how you shape them.
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