Venetian Cookies S-Shaped Cookies

Italian S Cookies (also known as Delicious Venetian Cookie Bussola Buranello Cookies) are a traditional cookie that's popular on the island of Burano in Venice, Italy, and widely recognized.

This is a very old recipe and simply perfect for serving with any hot beverage, and easily recognized by its "S" shape and traditionally sold unfrosted; however can be frosted after baking.

Many times, you will see these simple lemon cookies in small Italian bakery shops along the water, and they serve alongside espresso.

This traditional yet classic Italian cookie recipe has been passed down for generations, often baked during Easter and Christmas, making them perfect for family gatherings, holiday cookie trays.

Although these are never frosted in Burano, we lightly frosted them for the holiday for a more festive look.

Scroll down and print off the recipes at the end.

Italian Christmas Eve

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is part of the Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration, in Italy, it's not called a feast but it certainly is pretty much the same and they refer to this name as a "Grand Meal" for their Christmas celebration dinner.

Christmas Eve is a fasting day for any kind of meat, and only seafood is served (actually several kinds of fish is made on this day) as part of the menu.

This Italian Christmas Eve Tradition of no meat continues to stay true to an Italian American seafood feast we serve her in America.

The seafood is part of Catholic abstinence from eating meat until the feast of Christmas Day.

The "Grand Meal" (feast) consists of seven different seafood dishes and traditionally was started in Southern Italy, and known simply as The Vigil (La Vigilia).

This celebration was to wait and welcome the Vigilia di Natale, and the birth of baby Jesus.

The seafood for Roman Catholics typically is fried fish in oil and shellfish that they could afford and was freshly caught.

Among the fish were clams with pasta which we add to Cioppino which is a fish stew, a salted codfish called baccala being the most popular to serve which is a codfish in a tomato sauce or squid, white fish, and several others that were fried.

In some of the oldest Italian American families, there was no count of the number of fish dishes that were served this Christmas Eve night.

Fried smelts and other types of seafood like Calamari fried were introduced into the menu much later through the years on Christmas Eve.

Here is a sample of the most popular ones we make every year.

May you all have a blessed season upon and enjoy the Traditional we set forward to carry on with this Catholic Christmas Eve menu we made through the years.

Cranberry Almond Biscotti

Cranberry Almond Biscotti is made with fresh cranberries and bursting with holiday and fall flavors.


During the winter months, we begin baking early for Christmas in our Italian family, and this is one cookie always on the cookie tray.

If you love Italian biscotti, you came to the right place today.


We make Grandma's anise biscotti which are a must-make every year, and we often dabble in other unique flavors like pistachio almond or pumpkin pistachio or another delicious choice. She would add cherries to even give them a more festive look to the batter!


Then we move on to several other cookies like the famous Italian fudge roll cookies and then stick to some traditional ones that the kids love like snickerdoodles.


The cookies all have to have a fall and holiday flair and this year we added new cookie to the mix, banana oatmeal, they're perfect for getting rid of overripe bananas.


Everyone has a favorite and we certainly can't go without our popular sesame seed Italian Cookies, those are always a big hit.


These cranberry biscotti cookies are loaded with fresh cranberry, almond, and chocolate and are just the perfect addition to our cookie-baking days.


When it comes to Christmas, we love to decorate our cookies with the holiday theme.


I usually take some plain recipes and transform them into a festive look using frosting, fruits, and spices.


The cranberries and flavors in this cookie are just the perfect inspiration to get that Holiday spirit of baking going.


These cookies are easy to make just scroll down to print off the recipe.