4 Best Pizzelle Makers for Traditional Italian Wafer Cookies
Make dozens of pizzelles this holiday with one of these best-selling pizzelle makers.
Top Pizzelle Maker Picks
- Best Overall: CucinaPro Nonstick Electric Pizzelle Maker
- Best Budget: Dash Mini Pizelle Maker
- Best Traditional Pizzelle Maker: Nordic Ware Krumkake Iron
- Best Piccolo Pizzelle Maker: CucinaPro Piccolo Pizzelle Baker
Pizzelle, sometimes known as Italian wafer cookies, are thin, crisp, sweet biscuits stamped with an ornate design. Making them requires a specialized appliance and we’re here to bring you the best choices at every price point.
What Is a Pizzelle?
Unless you come from the Abruzzo region of Italy, you might not be familiar with pizzelles. They are one of the world’s oldest known cookies and were made in celebration of a local festival. Now, many Italian and non-Italian families make these to celebrate holidays like Christmas or Easter. You can serve pizzelle for dessert, with ice cream, or sandwiched with hazelnut spread. They can also be used to make cannoli shells or small ice cream cones as they are slightly pliable while still warm from the maker.
The word pizzelle comes from the same root word as pizza to describe something small, found and flat. The dough is simple to make and similar to a waffle. A quick mixture of sugar, eggs, butter and flour (plus optional flavoring) magically turns to a crisp wafer cookie in between the two ornate metal plates of the pizzelle maker.
How Do Pizzelle Makers Work?
Pizzelle makers work very similarly to waffle makers with a few key differences. A dough is placed between two hot metal plates that are pressed together, flattening the dough to a wafer-thin, crisp texture, and stamped with an ornate design. For waffles, the design is intended to great deep wells to hold pools of syrup and butter. For pizzelle, the design is largely decorative and much more shallow to create a crisp cookie. For this reason, a specialized appliance is needed to make pizzelle and they cannot be made in a waffle iron.
In the past, pizzelles were made using a pizzelle iron held over a fire or stovetop. Today, there are many amazing electric versions that feature nonstick surfaces for easy creation and clean up.
How We Chose Our Picks
We scoured the web for the best pizzelle makers out there. We looked at major retailers that stock the makers and determined which were most popular and best reviewed. After weighing certain factors such as price, design, and type, we selected the best of the best.
The Best Pizzelle Makers
The people have spoken. The most popular and best-selling pizzelle maker available is the CucinaPro. With the thousands of positive reviews across Amazon, Williams-Sonoma, and other online retailers come dozens of pictures of gorgeous pizzelles made by home cooks and pizzelle enthusiasts alike. It makes two 5-inch pizzelles at once and comes in two versions: one with a Teflon surface for ease of use and one with a polished stainless steel surface for traditionalists.
The great minds at Dash are at it again with another affordable miniature version of a fun appliance. If you want to try making pizzelles at home but aren’t ready to make a large financial commitment, consider opting for the Dash mini pizzelle maker. It can only make one 4-inch pizzelle at a time, but its small shape makes it ideal for an occasional-use kitchen item.
If you desire to make your pizzelles the traditional way, try this option by Nordic Ware. It can make Norwegian krumkake (pizzelle’s Nordic cousin) or Italian pizzelle on any kind of stovetop burner and without electricity. This iron may be pricey, but it features a solid cast-aluminum construction and is sure to be a future family heirloom.
While this maker may not be miniature like the Dash model above, the pizzelles it makes are. The manufacturers of the most popular standard pizzelle maker also offer a piccolo (Italian for small) pizzelle maker that can make four 3 1/4-inch pizzelles at once, so you can make dozens in no time.
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