Christmas cookies are acquired two ways by most Italian-Americans: someone painstakingly bakes them with love and some colorful language, or someone has to wait on line for 2+ hours at the local Italian Bakery. Unfortunately for people who like a little chill with their cheer, even “Nonna Marijuana” isn’t making these Brooklyn cookies with the good stuff, and they remain separate indulgences. Is is the recipe for the best holiday cannabis cookies.

Most Italian holiday cookies are heavily flavored with luscious almond, rich coconut, or dolloped with a dose of fruit jelly. This particular recipe is an allergy friendly and simple pleasure that doesn’t involve expensive and exotic ingredients, but still tastes like a cloud that some saint is chilling on. Thanks to the dose of weed-infused butter, you can climb up there yourself and take a look.

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The Lemon Italian Cloud Cookie has a perfect crumble, disintegrating into a tart, sugary, buttery (and now weed spiked) treasure. Try this recipe if you want a less complicated introduction into the delicious cookie culture of the paisanas who raised me. My Mom and aunts put so much lemon on food and drinks every Christmas Eve that we started a drinking game. Everyone yells “LEMON!” and takes a sip of their drink whenever one of them says the word lemon.

Italian Lemon Cloud Cookies

• • 3 eggs
  • 2 ½ cups flour
  • ½ cup butter (½ stick regular unsalted, ½ stick weed infused butter* or one stick of infused if you dare)
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 Tbs and 2 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp vanilla extract
  • 2-3 drops lemon essential oil

Lemon Glaze:

• • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ⅛ tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 drops lemon essential oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees prepare a workspace covered with wax paper for wire racks and icing station. Sift together dry ingredients in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs with hand mixer until well combined and frothy. Fold into dry ingredients gently

Work in butter with mixer on low just until dough forms crumbs. On baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper, drop 1-inch balls of dough, leaving space as they will puff up significantly. Bake for 12 minutes, rotating once for even cooking. While cookies are in the oven, prepare the glaze mixing together all ingredients until incorporated. If icing is too thick, add a teaspoon of water.

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Remove cookies from oven and put on wire racks to cool When still warm but safe to handle, dip the top in icing and put on rack to dry. If you’re feeling extra fancy hit the cookies with fresh lemon zest while the icing is still warm. Allow to fully cool before storing, keep up to three weeks in a sealed container, a month in the fridge, or indefinitely in the freezer

Cannabutter

Decarboxylate 3.5g of finely ground cannabis at 225 degrees for 20 minutes in a tightly sealed, oven safe container. Put in lidded mason jar or vacuum sealed bag with cannabis and 1 stick of butter. Heat in water bath just under boiling for at least 1 hour. Strain and chill butter to use in recipes.

These cookies are so delicious and perfect for taking you to another dimension when the kitchen gets too hot with political chat or drama. The light but real lemon flavor comes from using a good quality essential oil like Young Living’s Lemon instead of fake-tasting grocery store extracts. It compliments the subtle cannabis flavor and also helps prevent anxiety from overindulging in cannabis–or politics.

Photos: Danielle Guercio [Instagram @danizig]