Pignoli originate in Italy, and the star flavor here is the pine nuts (pignoli in Italian). The main place you’ll find pignoli cookies is southern Italy and Sicily. They’re either rounded or formed into crescents, and are popular for the christmas holiday.
The cookie is gluten free because it’s based on almond paste (note that marzipan is not the same as standard almond paste). A pignoli is almost a spin-off of a macaron. The cookies are piped like macarons and composed of the same basic ingredients, but with pine nuts instead. Recipes are very simple, such as the one linked below:
Sometimes recipes for pignoli will contain more spices, like this recipe:
The flavor of the cookie is almond and pine nut. The ingredients are simple, so it highlights the quality of the pine nuts (and any spices you choose to use). Because pine nuts are so expensive, this is a special-occasion cookie.
I appreciate the blend of the two approaches in this recipe, but I also really like lemon and prefer to cut down on sugar:
I’ve also found recipes that use almond flour instead of almond paste, which can be a cheaper alternative: