Pignoli Cookies – Easy Italian Pine Nut Cookies

Sicilian Pignoli Cookies are simple, four-ingredient cookies with a sweet, nutty flavor. These classic Italian pine-nut cookies have crisp exteriors studded with crunchy pine nuts and soft centers. Authentic Italian pine-nut cookies are so good you will have a hard time eating just one!

Pignoli cookies, known in Italy as amaretti con pignoli, are amaretti-style or macaroon-style cookies topped with toasted pine nuts. In Sicily, you are sure to find these traditional Italian cookies adorning a cookie tray or dessert table along with other delicious cookies, such as Pizzicati, Anginetti, Italian Rainbow​ Cookies, or Almond Paste Cookies.  

With pine nuts and almond paste being the main ingredients, these cookies are truly a luxury that is most often reserved for Christmas or special occasions.  But they don’t have to be!

WHAT YOU WILL LOVE ABOUT THESE COOKIES

​There is a lot to love about these cookies, but to start with, this is a very easy recipe to make.  All of the ingredients are mixed together in a food processor for a few seconds and then the dough is rolled in the pine nuts before baking them.  Let them cool and they are ready to eat!

This recipe has only four ingredients— well, five if you want to dust them with powdered sugar!

They are everyone’s favorite cookies! They have a rich almond flavor and the perfect chewy texture.

Authentic Italian pignoli cookies are naturally gluten-free!  

Although the ingredients are pricey, homemade pignoli cookies are a better value than buying them from an Italian bakery.

INGREDIENT NOTES

​ALMOND PASTE

 I want to talk a little about almond paste because it is one of the main ingredients in this homemade pignoli cookie recipe. It is sweet and nutty, with an intense almond flavor, and it gives the cookies their chewy centers.  

Homemade Almond paste is easy to make, and I highly recommend it. With a few minutes of your time, almond flour, egg whites, and confectioners’ sugar, you can make it as you need it. Of course, it is also available in the baking aisle of most grocery stores.

There are usually two types of almond paste: one that comes in a tube and the other that comes in a brick form. I highly recommend that you purchase the brick form for this recipe. It will be denser and have less moisture than the kind in a tube. This is a sticky cookie dough, and if you use the type in the tube, your dough may be too creamy to form into cookies.​

ALMOND PASTE VS. MARZIPAN

Almond paste and marzipan are similar, but they are not necessarily interchangeable.  So please don’t use marzipan as a substitute for almond paste in this recipe. 

While both are made from ground almonds and sugar, marzipan has a much higher sugar content, making it sweeter, smoother, and more pliable. Its density makes it perfect for forming shapes and even painting them.  

Almond paste, on the other hand, is softer, grittier, and more moisture-rich. It can be creamed into cakes, cookies, and other recipes where marzipan can’t.  

PIGNOLI OR PINE NUTS 

Pignoli are the star ingredient in these chewy cookies, and they are very expensive nuts, so we don’t want to waste even one! Pine nuts have a high oil content, so they can become rancid and taste quite bitter if not stored properly. So be sure to store the unopened package in a cool, dry place. Once you open the package, the nuts should be stored in the refrigerator or, better yet, in the freezer to extend their shelf life. 

​HOW TO MAKE CLASSIC ITALIAN PIGNOLI COOKIES

1.Make the cookie dough:  

Break or tear the almond paste into small pieces. Place it in the bowl of a food processor along with the sugar, and process until it resembles coarse sand.

Add the eggs to the food processor and process until the dough forms, about 30 seconds.

2. Form the Cookies

Place pine nuts in a shallow dish.

Scoop a tablespoon of dough out and roll it into the pine nuts.

Place the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

3. Bake the Cookies

Bake the cookies in a preheated 325°F oven for 15-18 minutes. Cooking times may vary depending on the size of the cookies. When the cookies are done, they will be lightly golden brown, and the nuts will be toasted.

Remove the tray from the oven and let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for about 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. 

STORING THESE SIMPLE COOKIES

To store pignoli cookies, place them in an airtight container. They can be stored at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to a month. To freeze them, place them in a plastic container in a single layer with wax paper between layers and seal them with a tight-fitting lid.

WHY ARE PIGNOLI SO EXPENSIVE?

Pine nuts are the seeds that grow in the pine cones from pine trees.  Only certain varieties of pine trees produce pine nuts, and it takes 1 1/2 to 2 years for the seeds to mature and ripen before they can be eaten.  To complicate things, they are very difficult to harvest, and the process has to be done by hand.  So, the limited supply and the labor-intensive harvesting process make them a very expensive commodity.