Gina Lollobrigida’s Christmas Wreath Cookies

Karie Bible
Dec 15, 2025
3 min read

We are celebrating Christmas with the legendary Italian bombshell.

Gina Lollobrigida was born in Italy where she began her film career in 1946. She was hailed as "The world's most beautiful woman". Naturally Hollywood came calling. In addition to her films in Italy, she starred in Beat the Devil opposite Humphrey Bogart , Come September with Rock Hudson and Trapeze starring Burt Lancaster. Lollobrigida was also a skilled sculptor, painter and photographer.

When asked about Gina Lollobrigida, her Beat the Devil co-star Humphrey Bogart said, "She makes Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple."

Samantha Richardson is a great collaborator and made this recipe for her blog in 2018. You can read all about it right HERE! I love her posts and thought it would be fun to make these and have them ready for a Christmas party.

Recipe

This recipe is from the December 1964 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Ingredients

½ cup soft butter or margarine

⅓ cup granulated sugar

1 egg, separated

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup chopped, shelled pistachio nuts or tinted walnuts (see below)

½ cup strawberry jam

Directions

Make any time up to two weeks ahead:

Start heating oven. to 300 degrees. With electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter until creamy; beat in sugar, egg yolk, extracts, then flour, sifted with salt. Form into balls, using about 1 teaspoon of dough for each. Dip in slightly beaton egg, then roll lightly in the nuts.

Arrange cookies on greased cookie sheets. With fingertip, make a depression in the center of each. Bake 25 minutes. Then remove to wire rack and, while still warm, fill centers with jam. Store, tightly covered. Makes 36 cookies.

Tinted Walnuts: Start heating oven to 300 degrees. Add two dashes of liquid green food color to 2 teaspoons warm water; to it add 3/4 cup chopped California walnuts and toss thoroughly; then spread on cookie sheet and bake 8 minutes. Makes 3/4 cup.

NOTES: We all agreed that this recipe does not make 36 cookies. In my case, it made 20 of them. Samantha said that when she put the green dye soaked walnuts in the oven it made them a much darker shade of green. She didn't think that step was necessary. Dominique decided to make a green icing instead. I left the walnuts in the green dye for along time and then just sprinkled them on my cookies.

Special Guest

Samantha Ellis writes the column "Cooking with the Stars" for the Classic Movie Hub. She blogs at Musings of a Classic Film Addict and co-hosts the podcast "Ticklish Business". Samantha is also writing a book about classic film star recipes.

Dominique Breckinridge is an art/film creative and fashion designer, of Dominique Revue and Dominique Private Collection. Her trademark, professionally and personally, radiates from her adoration of classic cinema, influencing my continuous homage to Old Hollywood, rooted in her home brew adage, "Classic entertainment in a modern world done in a vintage manner."

You can see all of her work from garments to essays (including her ongoing NOTABLE CLASSIC BLACK ENTERTAINERS series)—and her homage to classic Hollywood—at www.dominiquerevue.weebly.com or by viewing my Dominique Revue YouTube Channel and my Dominique Revue Productions YouTube Channel.