Dan Pelosi famously loves a holiday cookie swap. On his Instagram account, @grossypelosi, and personal website, the recipe developer has chronicled many of his cookie parties over the years, during which he rolls brown butcher’s paper atop a large table and invites guests to drop by with their treats, open-house-style. Some of Pelosi’s cookie recipes — like for a fig-filled Italian classic cuccidati — landed in his 2023 cookbook, Let’s Eat. But for his newest cookbook, Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day, Pelosi aptly dedicates an entire section to the cookie party, which he writes is “without contest, my favorite day of the year.”
This pignoli cookie recipe also comes from Italian tradition: translating to “pine nuts” in Italian, these chewy almond cookies feature a pine nut-studded exterior. (Pelosi calls them the “royalty of Italian sweets.”) For day-of hosting ease, the dough can be premade and placed in the fridge for up to three days before baking, or frozen for up to one month beforehand. Because, as Pelosi writes, “the true beauty of any cookie party is in the mingling and the storytelling. Every cookie and every baker has a story to tell, and I love seeing them all come out at the party.”
24 ounces almond paste, refrigerated
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
2 large egg whites
16 ounces pine nuts
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed sheet pan (or two, or three) with parchment paper.
Step 2: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the almond paste, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and egg whites. Beat on medium speed until just combined into a sticky dough, about 2 minutes.
Step 3: Pour the pine nuts into a small bowl. Scoop up 1 tablespoon of dough, roll into a ball, then roll through the pine nuts, pressing to adhere. Set on the prepared sheet pans. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing them 1 inch apart.
Step 4: Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown. Let the cookies cool completely before serving.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Let’s Party by Dan Pelosi © 2025. Published by Union Square & Co., an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group. Photography by Johnny Miller.
