Even if you’ve been baking the same holiday cookies for years, there are always a few new tricks to learn.
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RecipeRugelach
These buttery, flaky cookies feature a jewel-like filling of jam and a dusting of chopped pistachios.
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RecipeRaspberry Linzer Cookies
The little window in this almond-and-hazelnut-flavored cookie reveals a filling of tart raspberry preserves.
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RecipePecan Thumbprint Jam Cookies
These raspberry jam-filled thumbprints are easy to love: They call for a few simple ingredients you’ve likely got on hand, they’re super-easy to make, they’re sweet and nutty, and they’re gorgeous on a cookie platter.
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RecipeKahlúa Fudge Bites
These are very chocolatey and rich, which is why I like to cut them into smaller, bite-size squares.
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RecipeChocolate-Glazed Chocolate-Hazelnut Cookies
Inspired by several German recipes and a Swiss cookie called Brunsli, these cookies are rich and bittersweet, not only from dark chocolate and cocoa powder, but from espresso, which deepens and enriches the other flavors.
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RecipeChocolate-Nut Wafers
As with the Toasted Almond Butter Thins, a very sharp knife makes it easy to slice the nutty dough into neat squares.
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RecipeMocha Sandwich Cookies
Delicate chocolate cookies stack up with a mocha-cream-cheese filling in these sweet little sandwiches.
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RecipeChocolate Brownie Cookies
These cookies are really popular at our bakery, Grace Baking. A pastry bag is faster than a spoon for piping the cookie batter; use a #4 tip. It's okay to pipe the cookies close together; they won't spread much during baking.
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RecipeChocolate Cherry Coconut Macaroons
These rich macaroons are moist and fudgy inside—they’re something like a cross between a cookie and a chocolate truffle.
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RecipePeanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars
Upgrade the classic bar cookie with the buttery tenderness of a shortbread crust. These crowd-pleasing bars are covered with a creamy peanut butter spread and bittersweet chocolate ganache.
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RecipeLemon Shortbread Bars
Making the crust of these classic lemon bars with melted (rather than softened) butter keeps it nice and crisp, in contrast to the creamy lemon filling.
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RecipeMacadamia Double-Decker Brownie Bars
These gorgeous two-layer bars have a brownie base topped with a gooey nut-and-coconut-studded topping.
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RecipeApricot, Pistachio & Chocolate-Chip Bars
The trick to ensuring the right amount of crispiness in these bake sale favorites is partially baking the bottom layer before adding the sweet apricot filling and texture-rich crumb topping.
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RecipeCranberry Streusel Shortbread Bars
One of our favorite holiday cookies, these bars have a tangy cranberry filling that keeps the ultra-rich crust and streusel topping in check.
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RecipeHoney-Nut Bars
Some flavor combinations bring out the best in one other: maple and walnut, lemon and ginger, apples and honey, blueberry and lime, chocolate and just about anything. Honey and nuts are one of those perfect flavor marriages. Add some light brown sugar, and you've got a sweet, salty, crunchy bar that could potentially become your new go-to cookie.
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RecipeLemon Cheesecake Squares
These sweet-and-tangy squares are what you get when you cross lemon bars with cheesecake. The bars need to set up in the refrigerator, so allow at least 5 hours of chilling time before you serve (or pack) them. You can substitute lower-fat cream cheese for regular, if you like. The cheesecake itself will be slightly less creamy but still fabulous.
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RecipePeanut Butter & Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
These soft, flourless cookies house a bittersweet filling, for a taste combination that appeals to the kid in all of us.
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RecipeJumbo Cranberry Oatmeal Jumbles
If you’re not a fan of white chocolate, you can omit it from this recipe and double the amount of dried cranberries instead.
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RecipeOrange Cream Star Cookies
The cookies can be made ahead and frozen. The orange cream may be refrigerated for several days; soften it at room temperature before using it.
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RecipeSnickerdoodle Cookies
This classic sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon-sugar has a crisp exterior with a soft, chewy inside.
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RecipeNutty Caramel Thumbprint Cookies
This cookie recipe uses a great shortcut: melted store-bough caramels as a filling for the thumbprints. Look for individually wrapped caramels in the candy aisle of the supermarket.
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RecipePotato-Chip Cookies
Potato chips in a cookie? You bet. My version of my grandmother’s recipe adds a new and delicious crunch to the traditional pecan sandie, resulting in a buttery cookie with a light and flaky texture. Don't refrigerate or freeze the unbaked dough, as the potato chips will become soggy.
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RecipeOatmeal-Chocolate Chip Waffle Cookies
Baking cookie dough in a waffle iron takes about a minute and a half, a real time-saver when you've got to have warm cookies right away. These cookies, excerpted from the book Dessert Express, look like mini waffles, but they bake up just like oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, with browned, toasty oats on the outside and gooey, melty chips. Once cooled, they look cute garnishing bowls of ice cream. Get Inspired: View the recipe slideshow, Quick Chocolate Desserts for more quick dessert ideas, including a Chocolate-Hazelnut Waffle and a Molten Chocolate Cake.
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RecipeMaple-Walnut Tuiles
To give them their curved form, the tuiles are draped over a rolling pin when they’re hot from the oven. So measure your rolling pin and figure out how many 4-inch cookies you’ll be able to drape over it at once. That’s how big your batch of cookies should be. But you don’t have to shape them if you don’t want to—they’re just as delicious flat.
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RecipeCoconut Macaroons
Bake the cookies right away once they’re scooped onto the baking sheet to preserve their nice rounded shape.
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RecipeDouble Ginger Crackles
The double hit of ginger here comes from both ground ginger and crystallized ginger.
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RecipePistachio Meringues with Toasted Coconut
If you can't find superfine sugar, pulse granulated sugar in a food processor to a fine grind; measure after grinding. Pistachios and coconut are one of my favorite meringue flavoring combinations, but feel free to substitute with other additions. Fold in any ground nut, or even tiny chocolate morsels, if you like.
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RecipeChocolate-Dipped Espresso Shortbread Cookies
Melting chocolate with shortening helps the chocolate set without the need to temper it. You can omit the shortening and the dipping, and instead drizzle plain melted chocolate on the cookies.
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RecipeOrange-Hazelnut Olive Oil Cookies
Reminiscent of biscotti in texture, these not-too-sweet cookies are a perfect dipper for after-dinner coffee.
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RecipeGingerbread Biscotti
Biscotti are very forgiving, and you can bake these to your taste: chewy, crunchy, or somewhere in between.
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RecipeCoconut Sablés
No matter how many times you reroll the scraps, these cookies always come out tender and delicate, which is one reason I love them so much. You can roll out sheets of dough and freeze them, well-wrapped, for several weeks. Stamping frozen dough won’t affect baking time because it’s rolled out so thinly. Unsweetened coconut can be found at health-food stores.
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RecipePinwheel Cookies
These fun cookies, with their spirals of chocolate and vanilla dough, are perfect for Christmas or parties. Watch the playback of our Virtual Cookie Exchange, where Denise Mickelsen demonstrates how to get a well-defined design on the cookies and offers up her secret to keeping the pinwheel log rounded in the freezer.
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RecipeOatmeal-Cranberry Cookies
A hint of orange zest and flecks of cranberry give classic oatmeal cookies a festive new twist. Visit Baker's Central for more baking tips and tricks, and check out our Christmas Guide for more holiday cookies and recipes.
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RecipeCardamom-Honey Cutouts
These cookies are more than a mere canvas for decorating, with the honey's haunting sweetness and a subtle spiciness from the cardamom. Watch our Virtual Cookie Exchange to see how food stylist and associate food editor, Samantha Seneviratne, uses a flooding technique to decorate these cut-outs.
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RecipeLemon-Rosemary Christmas Trees
Rosemary gives these holiday cutout cookies a subtle piny touch, and lemon adds brightness.
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RecipeCream Cheese Spritz Cookies
My grandmother's recipe for this sweet and slightly tangy cookie dates back to the 1960s. Luckily, today’s cookie presses are much easier to use than the old hand-crank variety, so baking dozens of pretty little cookies is a snap.
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RecipeGingerbread Cookies
Lightly flour the sharp edge of your cookie cutters to keep the dough from sticking. Visit the Guide to Christmas for more holiday recipes and tips for perfect Christmas cookies.
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RecipeSugar Cookies
This dough is not only great for cut-out cookies, it also acts as the delicious bottom layer of the Florentines.
