CINNAMON CANESTRELLI cookies to give as gifts for Christmas, easy, quick, and delicious, soft butter shortbread cookies, perfect for breakfast or a snack.
The cinnamon canestrelli are a more Christmasy version of the typical hard-boiled egg cookies, usually given as gifts at Christmas, and are very tasty. Try them with a pinch of cinnamon.
The recipe to prepare cinnamon canestrelli is very simple; you will need ingredients that we usually have at home: flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and cinnamon, plus lemon or orange zest.
These cookies, very popular between Piedmont and Liguria, are nevertheless prepared all over Italy. They are characterized by the dough made with hard-boiled egg yolk, rich in butter, very crumbly, and melt in your mouth.
I prepared them with cinnamon, but if you don’t like it, you can remove it or perhaps replace it with another spice or a mix of spices like ‘pisto’.
Follow me in the kitchen today there are cinnamon canestrelli.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very economical
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 15
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 egg yolk (hard-boiled)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 5 1/4 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp orange juice
- Half orange zest
- 1 pinch salt
- Half tsp ground cinnamon
Steps
Cook the egg and extract the hard-boiled yolk.
In a bowl, sift the flour and form a well in the center.
Add the softened butter in pieces, powdered sugar, yolk, grated orange zest, juice, and a pinch of salt.
Quickly work the ingredients with your hands until you get a homogeneous dough.
Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
After the resting time, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface, forming a rectangle about a quarter-inch thick.
With a flower-shaped cutter, cut the cookies and transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake the canestrelli in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 12-15 minutes or until the edges begin to slightly brown.
Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool completely on a rack. Once cooled, sprinkle the canestrelli with powdered sugar.
Bon appetit
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Cinnamon Canestrelli
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FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Cinnamon Canestrelli
Can I remove the cinnamon?
Of course, if you don’t like it.
How long do canestrelli keep?
They keep for about a week, stored in a metal box.
Can I use raw yolk instead of cooked?
Yes, but the peculiarity of these cookies is the hard-boiled egg, which, along with the butter, makes them so crumbly they’ll melt in your mouth.

