Italian Rainbow Cookies (Italian Christmas Cookies)
These Italian Rainbow Cookies are a classic Italian-American Christmas cookie made with colorful almond cake layers, raspberry or apricot jam, and a smooth chocolate coating. Beautiful, festive, and perfect for holiday cookie trays.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 8 oz. can almond paste
- 3 sticks butter softened and divided
- 4 eggs separated
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp. each red and green food coloring
- 1 cup raspberry jam
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350-degrees
- The first step is to separate the eggs . Then beat the egg whites in a mixer until soft peaks form . Set aside while preparing the batter.
- In a stand mixer or hand mixer combine the sugar with the almond paste and 1 stick of butter. Mix until smooth. Add the remaining 2 sticks of butter and continue mixing until smooth. Gradually add in the egg yolks, then the milk and almond extract , mix until well combined. Add the flour and slowly mix until combined.
- Fold the egg whites into the cake batter.
- Divide the dough into thirds. Leaving 1 uncolored and adding one drop of green food coloring to 1 and 1 drop of red to another. Spread the dough on parchment lined quarter size pans. Bake for 10 -12 minutes. Let cool. Then spread each layer with raspberry jam. Put the layers together. Making the uncolored 1 the center. Then add a weight to press them down.
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Frost the cooled cookies with the melted chocolate.
- Let set then cut the rainbow cookies into squares.
Notes
For clean, beautiful layers, chill the assembled cookie well before cutting. Use a sharp serrated knife and gently trim the edges first, then cut into even squares. This gives you those distinct colorful layers and clean chocolate-coated edges.