My Italian Themed Christmas Cookie Box

This year, I wanted to plan my Christmas cookie box around a specific theme. Not to be extra fancy or anything, just to help keep my inspiration harnessed, because as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I am overwhelmed with Christmas cookie ideas and there are way too many amazing cookie recipes out there to narrow it down to a do-able number without some sort of theme to keep me focused.

I am already planned a Mexican cookie themed box for next year, so I think this may become a thing in my kitchen for the foreseeable future.

Ok so let’s talk about Italian cookies…

There are so many incredible Italian cookies and even when you narrow that list down to cookies that are considered “holiday” cookies, the options are still plentiful.

After much consideration, these are the cookies that I chose…

• • • Chocolate Spice Cookies – these cookies were going to be included regardless of the theme. The combination of chocolate and warm spices is my favorite, so I wanted to share that with my friends, family and neighbors.
    • Ricciarelli – tender little almond and citrus cookies that are ridiculously easy to make and have a texture that makes everyone smile if they have never been treated to one before.
    • Chocolate Cherry & Macadamia Biscotti – an Italian themed cookie box must contain biscotti and these have dried cherries, buttery macadamias and chocolate. Perfect for the holidays.
    • Clementine Canestrelli – a delicate little cookie made with hard boiled egg yolks and dipped into a clementine glaze.
    • Tiramisu Cookies – obviously these cookies were included. Tiramisu is what everyone thinks of when they think about Italian desserts and this tender little cookies are made with mascarpone, espresso powder and give all of the tiramisu vibes in cookie form.

There are so many other wonderful Italian cookies out there… plenty to make an Italian Christmas Cookie Box 2.0 in the future, but these are the recipes that I narrowed down to for several reasons.

• 1. I wanted cookies that would taste good for about a week after baking and all of these fit the bill. There are some great cookie recipes out there that need to be stored in a specific way or have short shelf life or won’t look cute after being tightly packed into a box, so all of these considerations helped me decide on these 5 recipes.
• 2. I wanted a variety of flavors – some chocolate, some citrus, some spiced, some tart and some more mild – I wanted a box full of cookies that there was a good chance that the person I gave the box to would love at least one of them. Bonus points if they loved them all.
• 3. I wanted a variety of textures too – traditional chewy cookie texture, a sugar crust, super tender, melt in your mount and really crunchy. I think this collection had a little of each.

I hope this little collection of cookies has inspired you to either recreate my Christmas cookie box or curate your own version. Like I said earlier, I think next year is going to be themed around Mexican cookies, so if you have any suggestions, send them my way!

Happy holidays, happy baking and happy planning for next year!