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An easy Pizzelle recipe for the classic Italian cookie, lightly sweetened and flavored with vanilla or anise. All you need are 6 ingredients and 1 pizzelle maker!
I learned about Pizzelle from one of my best childhood friends. Her family made Pizzelle the traditional way, with an iron that had engraved plates and a clamp to hold it together.
Loosely translated, Pizzelle means “small, flat, and round” and that’s exactly what these cookies are.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Equipment and ingredient notes
- Pizzelle iron: Modern versions of pizzelle makers are just like waffle makers. They’re silvery, shiny, and beautiful, and they also make cookies! We rounded up the best pizzelle makers you can buy, and our top pick is the one I personally own and love – the Cuisinart Pizzelle Press.
- Anise: Anise is a common flavor, or you can use vanilla or almond extract. For lemon, use 1 teaspoon lemon oil instead of lemon extract (lemon extract doesn’t have enough flavor).
Do you need a pizzelle maker to make pizzelle?
I tested some of the most popular hacks on the Internet to see if you can in fact make pizzelle without a pizzelle iron—and none of them worked! I tried making them in a waffle maker, the oven, and on a stovetop. The waffle maker made pizzelle-flavored waffles, and the oven and stove top both led to pizzelle-flavored pancakes.
We rounded up the best pizzelle makers you can buy, and our top pick is the one I personally own and love – the Cuisinart Pizzelle Press. You can buy it at Walmart for $46.99. If you’re not looking to spend a ton of money, the Dash Mini Pizzelle Maker is a great option, too. It’s so cute—and it’s only $9.99 at Target!
Step-by-step instructions
- Preheat pizzelle iron and lightly coat with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, butter, anise or vanilla extract, baking powder, and eggs.
- Drop slightly rounded tablespoons of batter on to pizzelle iron and close.
- Bake as directed by manufacturer or until golden brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Using a nonstick spatula, remove each pizzelle to a cooling rack; repeat with remaining batter.
- Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes about 36 cookies, 12 servings of 3 cookies each.
- Storage: Store Pizzelle at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (for best results, layer the cookies between pieces of parchment paper or wax paper).
- Freezer: Pack cooled Pizzelle in a sturdy container between layers of parchment or wax paper (they may get broken if they are just in plastic bags). Label, date, and freeze for up to 2 months.
- Rolled: While the pizzelle are still warm from the iron, wrap them around a wooden dowel. You can even fill them with sweetened ricotta for a Mock Cannoli.
- Bake sale: Pizzelle are ideal for a bake sale or cookie swap because they are rarer than the usual chocolate chip cookies or brownies, and they look so fantastic wrapped in a small plastic treat bag tied with a pretty bow.
- Italian menu: Create your own Italian Feast with a traditional Antipasto Platter or Bruschetta, Spaghetti and Meatballs or Lasagna, Caesar Salad, Garlic Bread, or Panzanella Salad. Finish up the meal with Pizzelle, of course, or thick slabs of Tiramisu.
- Drinks with dessert: Looking for a cool Italian cocktail? Try a bright Aperol Spritz, a sweet Bellini, or a classic Negroni or Americano. Or, sip on some Limoncello.
Recipe FAQs
I tested every internet hack I could find to see if you can make pizzelle without a pizzelle iron. None of them worked! I tried making them in a waffle maker, in the oven (between 2 baking sheets), and in a skillet (flattened with something heavy on top). The waffle maker made pizzelle flavored waffles, and the oven and stove-top both led to pizzelle flavored pancakes. If you’re going to make pizzelle, you need a pizzelle iron.
Pizzelle comes from the word pizze which means round and flat, like a pizza. The elle part of the word means small (the diminutive). So pizzelle are small and flat.
The oldest known cookies in the world are Pizzelle, a small, flat cookie from Italy. Centuries ago, a small village called Colcullo was overrun by snakes. They were driven out by a Benedictine monk named San Domenico. The village celebrated with pizzelle and the Festival of the Snakes (or the Feast Day of San Domenico), still held every year on May 1st. Snake lovers, bring your own snake!
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Pizzelle
Equipment
- Pizzelle iron I love my Cuisinart Pizzelle Press, but, I'm also a big fan of CucinaPro pizzelle makers! You can get one that makes mini cookies or regular size on Amazon.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup butter melted and cooled
- 4 eggs
- 1 tablespoon anise or vanilla extract (see note 2)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat pizzelle iron and lightly coat with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, butter, eggs, anise or vanilla extract, and baking powder. Drop slightly rounded tablespoons of batter on to pizzelle iron and close.
- Bake as directed by manufacturer or until golden brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Using a nonstick spatula, remove each pizzelle to a cooling rack; repeat with remaining batter.
- Cool completely and dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Pizzelle iron: Modern versions are just like a waffle maker: a silvery, shiny, beautiful waffle maker that makes cookies. I use and recommend the Cuisinart Pizzelle Press, which you can buy for $49.95 on Amazon.
- Anise: Anise is a common flavor, or you can use vanilla or almond extract. For lemon, use 1 teaspoon lemon oil instead of lemon extract (lemon extract doesn’t have enough flavor).
- Yield: This recipe makes about 36 cookies, 12 servings of 3 cookies each.
- Storage: Store Pizzelle at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (for best results, layer the cookies between pieces of parchment paper or wax paper).
- Freezer: Pack cooled Pizzelle in a sturdy container between layers of parchment or wax paper (they may get broken if they are just in plastic bags). Label, date, and freeze up to 2 months.
I been making pizelles for over 40 years . For those who say that get soggy cool them on a cookie rack before you stack them and if you put them in a zip lock storage bag when they are cooled they stay crisp. Do not put them with any other cookies you make because they will get soft. I found this out the hard way. The butter in the other cookies softened them . also instead of butter I use wesson vegetable oil. 3/4 of a cup. Good luck everyone.
Thank you for sharing this information. I’m excited to try this recipe.
My grandmother made these all the time and they are my son’s favorites. I wanted to make them gluten free so I used 1/2 each of casava, almond, tree nut and a wonderful GF blend, when using GF upping the fat or binder is helpful so I added one more egg. They are amazing! I even shaves some dark chocolate into the last few for a little variation!
Hard to imagine freezing pizelles. This are very thin and delicate Italian specialities. If they are kept in an airtight container they will stay fresh a long time.
You think so? Not disagreeing. I just feel like the ones I make could be frozen without issue as long as they aren’t knocked around. If they were in a square tupperware container, for example (in addition to being wrapped properly) I feel like it would work. But I should probably try this to know for sure!
Can you freeze them?
Hi Dara, yes. Grocery stores do it all the time! These are probably some of the best cookies for freezing. Just keep them wrapped well so they don’t pick up any freezer flavors (that’s more of a note-to-self than a suggestion for you… I’m sure your freezer is immaculate unlike mine 😉 ) Thanks for the great question! If you try them, I hope you love them. -Meggan
I wonder if my krumkaka iron would work. Its the same principal.
Hi there
Why is it no matter how much lemon I put they do not taste lemony?
Don’t know what I am doing wrong.
I need to test this and figure it out for you. I’ll put it on my list for next week. I’ll reply back once I’ve cracked the code!!! Thanks Carla.
If I may ask, are you adding any fresh lemon zest? I might suggest that along with your lemon extract. Another suggestion might be to add a little lemon oil to your lemon extract, but be careful as it has a very strong flavor and may over power your cookie.
Hi Carla, I tested this ALL DAY. I tried so many variations – zest, juice, extract, all three together. It is surprisingly difficult to get that lemon flavor to show up in the finished cookies!! I am genuinely shocked. The last combination I tried, which wasn’t lemony enough in my opinion, was 1/4 cup lemon juice, 4 tablespoons lemon zest, and 2 tablespoons lemon extract. I also added a pinch of salt. This did not get the job done. You can taste lemon, but I feel like it’s just not convincing. So, I’m going to order some lemon oil (as Yvette kindly suggested, and because I’m not sure what else to do) and will keep you posted. -Meggan
Later on Meggan says to use Lemon Oil instead of Extract to get the Lemon Flavour to come through.
Hi Everyone;
I simply HAVE TO comment on a couple of posts in regard to Pizzelle problems, questions, and puzzlement! :
One woman said her Pizzelle were crisp when removed from the iron, but got somewhat soggy after they cooled. I assume you’re cooling them on a regular cooling rack meant to cool cookies fairly quickly. Putting hot cookies onto a flat sheet pan, or similar, to cool, could cause any remaining steam and/or heat in the cookie to collect in the cookie, making it soggy. There’s a reason why cooling racks are designed to be open-weave, which doesn’t hold heat or steam in the cookie, but allows it to escape and the cookie to remain crispy.
Also, I would guess that perhaps you live in a humid/muggy part of the country or are liable to have occasional humid days here and there? Humidity plays a part in the science of baking and many different kinds of baking recipes have warnings about not trying to make them on very humid days, so maybe thats what’s happening?
I live in Florida and on humid days if I find my pizzelle have lost their “crisp” a bit by the time I’ve completed my batch, I place them gehat’s directly on the slatted shelves of my counter-top Convection oven, on a low/warm setting for maybe 10 minutes, so that they would dry out some. They were perfectly light, crisp, and crunchy when I took them out!
I cant imagine that another woman who mentioned trying to use pizza dough (??) to make eggless-pizzelle could POSSIBLY have any success! Just because pizza dough and Pizzelle sound similar, they have absolutely NOTHING in common! Using pizza dough as an eggless substitute for pizzelle dough First off, pizzelle cookies don’t contain any yeast, nor di you want them ti rise or be fluffy! Some cooks question even using Baking Powder in Pizzelle recipes, as it helps make baked goods fluffy, and Pizzelle are NOT supposed to be fluffy, but light, flat, almost see-through, and crisp! That’s the antithesis of pizza dough! All the butter in these recipes are what allow a light cooking-oil spray of the plates when you first start using a new iron; after that initial spraying, much the same way that a cast-iron skillet works, building a “seasoned” cooking surface which will ultimately provide an almost non-stick cooking e provide. Added to that, the butter in the dough will allow the cookies to slide off the plates on their own as the iron is opened, or an edge-lift with a silicone spatula should coax the cookie to drop off the top plate if momentarily stuck there when the iron is opened. Since theres no butter in pizza dough, and since pizza dough is meant to rise, while pizzelle are supposed to be almost see-through and so buttery that they melt in your mouth, your pizza dough isnt able to give you ANY help at all in making pizzelle. Maybe you could try “Better Than Eggs”, a product found in the butter and egg aisle instead of real eggs, and “I Cant Believe it’s Not Butter” in place of real butter for a dairy-free try. I have no idea if these substitutions would allow you to create a dairy-free cookie, but you could try – At least there will be the possibility of a crispy pizzelle resulting from the substitutions, where there’s a snowballs chance in hell of pizza dough making anything other than the bread it is meant to be. That will NEVER work!
I cool my pizzelle on an open slatted cooling rack and store them between sheets of newspaper in a large flat cardboard box and they stay crispy and crunchy! I’ve kept both the cookies and their dough in the fridge with no ill-effects, and have heard that they freeze well. As suggested earlier, if your cookies become less crisp because of the weather in the part of the country where youre baking, to restore their.’crunch’ you can place them carefully right on the open metal shelves of your oven or convection oven on a Warm setting (around 150 degrees F, or your oven’s lowest setting) for 10 minutes or so until they ‘snap’ when you break one. That gentle heat will remove the humidity from your cookies, and they’ll taste like they just came off the iron again!!
Great recipes on this site; thanks for sharing, everyone! 🙂👍🏼💕
My pizzelles start out crispy but in the cooling process they become soft. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Meggan,
This is a great recipe, thank you for sharing! Made our first batch this evening and they are amazing; just as my Mom used to make (I used the anise flavoring)!
To prevent sticking I use a very light coat of coconut oil, it does not get gummy and handles the high-heat much better than most other oils (apply with a brush or paper towel).
The “cleanup” crew always favors the one-bowl recipe since it allows them to get to the cookies quicker!!
Merry Christmas and a Very Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!
Hi Florence, thank you so much for this! I love the coconut oil tip, I don’t always like it in savory applications myself but for these cookies it sounds PERFECT! Glad the recipe worked out for you. I’m so grateful for your support! Merry Christmas to you too! Take care.
I found this website while trying to find out whether pizzelle dough could be stored in the fridge overnight and then baked the next day; so if anyone has experience with this, I’d love to know. I grew up in a duplex, next door to my Italian Grandparents, and I was always enlisted to help my Nonna make pizzelles. Back then we used the long handled cast iron pizzelle irons on the flames of a gas stove; but today I use a Palmer Electric Pizzelle Iron; Model 1000…as does all of my family who carry on the tradition. There is a newer teflon coated version of this iron (model 1000T) but all who have tried this have gone back to using the model with the bare cast aluminum plates. My Nonna always used anise oil flavoring; but there are lots of flavored oils to try. Check out the Lorann Oils website for ideas. My mother’s favorite flavor to use when she bakes pizzelles is coconut and my family loves cinnamon flavor. My mother also stores them in a large tin and keeps them in her freezer. It always surprises me that they are still crisp after freezing; but I haven’t tried it yet myself. Enjoyed reading all the postings here. I think I’ll try chocolate this year!
Hi Kathy,
I enjoyed reading your story…my oldest sister still has the long handled over the stove pizzelle maker and uses it. As Italians we always used anise in the pizzelles. And we never put powdered sugar on them…especially if you are freezing them. Plus you need to be able to get that hint of anise and not powdered sugar. I’m not sure if you could store the dough in refrigerator. Maybe if it was tightly sealed and then brought to room temp?
My recipe says to make these and store in fridge overnight. They are easier to bake cause they are less sticky and the anise flavor intensifies overnight.
I’ve been trying to find a cinnamon flavor recipe, and I saw your comment. Can you tell me how you do yours? Is it just by adding cinnamon to the existing recipe? Do you still use vanilla extract? Thanks so much!