A Big Box of Cookie Recipes Guaranteed to Impress This Holiday Season (2024)

Thomas J. Story

These elegant treats come from my Aunt Charon, who has made the recipe every Christmas for as long as I can remember, and sent cookies to family and friends around the world. When I was a child, they were my least favorite because I found the marmalade filling bitter; as an adult, I’ve come to my senses.

Recipe:Marmalade Sandwich Cookies

Fudgy and rich, like brownies, these hide a treat inside—a melty peppermint patty. The cookies are made with a pound of chocolate, so buy the best quality available. For exactly 40 cookies, measure level tablespoons of dough; for a thicker “envelope” (but fewer cookies), think generous tablespoons.

Recipe: Chocolate Peppermint Surprises

While you often see ginger cookies flavored with chocolate, caramel, or even raspberry, adding a bull’s-eye of tangy lime curd transforms them entirely. The brilliant citrus flavor is especially welcome amid the season’s sea of peppermint and warming spices.

Recipe: Ginger-Lime Thumbprints

Iced cookies are an essential part of our annual spread, beloved by the kids, who jockey for the ones with the most toppings. I generally choose a few shapes and make several dozen of each. I’ll let my sons have their way with decorating a stack, then do the rest myself. A single color of royal icing simplifies things; you can add color and sparkle with sanding sugar or sprinkles.

Recipe:Classic Sugar Cookies

These macaroons are the most delicious we’ve ever tasted in the Sunset Test Kitchen. The recipe comes from Karen Dannenbaum of Topanga, California, who inherited it from her mother, Elsa, an outstanding cook. Of all the recipes Elsa left behind in her handwritten notebooks, “this was one of her best, and a family favorite,” Dannenbaum says.

Recipe: Elsa’s Chocolate-Dipped Macaroons

The starting point for this cookie was a recipe that reader Colette Tihista-Longin of Great Falls, Montana, found in a recipe collection at a yard sale. “I adapted it to include caramel and sea salt. It’s a hit every year at our cookie exchange.” Despite the cookie’s name, a wooden spoon makes a neater depression than your thumb will.

Recipe: Chocolate Thumbprints with Caramel and Sea Salt

“I call these the ‘backache’ cookies because I always make a double batch, sitting hunched over at the table,” says Fran Pepoon of Roseville, California. She has been baking these chocolate cookies, which have a subtle hit of orange and vanilla, every Christmas for 30 years, adapting them over time from a recipe given to her by a friend. Two tips: The cookies tend to stick and spread, so be sure to use a nonstick baking-sheet liner or parchment, and don’t bake more than 12 cookies on each sheet.

Recipe: Chocolate Lace Sandwich Cookies

“This recipe is from my mother-in-law’s box of typed 3- by 5-in. cards, handed down from her mother,” says Beryl Schwartz of Ojai, California. “Nothing reminds us of the holidays like the aroma of molasses wafting through the house!” Schwartz adds cloves and ginger for extra spice and rolls the cookie balls in turbinado sugar for crunch.

Recipe: Donna’s Molasses Cookies

This version of the melt-in-your-mouth butter-and-nut cookies called Russian tea cakes or Mexican wedding cakes is from Yigit Pura of Tout Sweet Pâtisserie, in San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA. We love it for its extreme crispness and toasty brown-butter flavor, and because it’s not too sweet; most of the sugar is on the outside.

Recipe: Tout Sweet Russian Tea Cakes

Romina Rasmussen, owner of Salt Lake City’s Les Madeleines bakery, makes these stunning holiday cookies. “Some gingerbread cookie recipes have chocolate in the dough, but using chocolate glaze offers an opportunity to decorate,” says Rasmussen—which, although a bit painstaking, produces cookies so lovely it’s worth the effort. The glaze retains an appealing softness even after it’s set, so serve the cookies on a platter—in a single layer—to preserve their prettiness.

Recipe: Chocolate Gingerbread Snowflakes

There is shortbread, and then there’s this shortbread, ultra-buttery with a light crunch. The secrets are rice flour for the sandy texture and a slow-and-low baking process to develop the flavor. It’s a recipe that lends itself to easy, festive riffing (sprinkles! snowflakes!)—and one you’ll be happy to have in your back pocket for years.

Recipe: Sheet Pan Scottish Shortbread

Add colorful sprinkles to this batch of shortbread, and cut them into 1-in. squares to create these little bites.

Recipe: Sprinkle-Top Shortbread Bites

Carefully cut hot shortbread with 2 1/2- to 3-in. chunky letter-shaped cookie cutters (we used 3-in. Ann Clark alphabet cookie cutters) to spell holiday messages such as fa la la, joy, or the initials of recipients.

Recipe: Shortbread Messages

With brown sugar, cloves, and a Nordic Ware snowflake shortbread pan, these little snowflake squares look almost too good to eat.

Recipe: Speculaas Snowflakes

“I loved to eat these when I lived in Asia,” says Romina Rasmussen, owner of Salt Lake City’s Les Madeleines bakery. “Pocky sticks are Japanese but they’re all over Taiwan and Hong Kong too.” The flexible dough lends itself to myriad shapes, but long pocky sticks look great on a dessert bar in a glass because they bring height to the table.

Recipe: Chocolate-Peppermint Pocky Sticks

With a simple cookie cutter, you can create glamour from dough.

Recipe: Lemon Meringue-Filled Gingersnap Snowflake Cookies

Submitted by reader Lynn Lloyd, Mt. Shasta, CA

Cornstarch gives these cookies a delicate, sandy texture. You could also fill them with thick caramel or frosting.

Recipe: Chocolate Hazelnut Cutout Cookies (Nocciolini)

Submitted by reader Anissa Shea, Walnut Creek, CA

Although the flavors here are rich and complex, the recipe is very easy to make.

Recipe: Chai-spiced Shortbread Cookies

Submitted by reader Marilyn Perata Berg, Saratoga, CA

Instead of making traditional, individually shaped cuccidati, Marilyn came up with a simplified bar cookie technique to fill and shape her recipe.

Recipe: Sicilian Dried Fruit and Nut Bars (Cuccidati)

These cinnamon-sugar cookies disappear quickly, so keep plenty on hand!

Recipe: Snickerdoodles

Prepare to abandon all restraint when you try one of these cookies, made with melted chocolate and chocolate chips in the batter and layered with a chocolate ganache filling.

Recipe: Triple-Threat Chocolate Cookies

Submitted by reader Heather Allen, Aptos, CA

A low oven temperature is the secret to developing the melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Recipe: Pecan Balls

Whether you like thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies, prefer them thin and crisp, or crave them double chocolatey, we’ve got the perfect recipe for you.

Recipe: Thick, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe: Thin, Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe: Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

More: Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

Like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, only better.

Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies

The holidays are not complete without crisp, molasses-flavored gingerbread men and women.

Recipe: Gingerbread People

This delicious fall treat offers the perfect way to make use of your Thanksgiving leftovers. Instead of using jam, fill these bite-sized cookies with your extra cranberry sauce.

Recipe:Cranberry Thumbprints

Dulce de leche, a thick, rich caramel made with sweetened milk, is sold in Mexican markets and some well-stocked supermarkets. If it’s unavailable, use a thick caramel sauce or caramel ice cream topping.

Recipe: Alfajores de Dulce de Leche (Caramel Sandwich Cookies)

These rich, delicate almond cookies are perfect with a cup of tea.

Recipe: Almond Butter Cookies

Bourbon adds spark to these wafer-thin spice cookies.

Recipe: Bourbon Snaps

The sandy texture of these shortbreadlike cookies comes from semolina, made from durum wheat and usually used for pasta. Orange zest and currants impart lots of flavor.

Recipe:Buttery Semolina Currant Cookies

Tita Owre of Pecos, New Mexico, says that her mother’s apricot buttons were more than just a Christmas cookie―they were an essential part of every family celebration.

Recipe: Apricot Buttons (front)

Recipe: Brown Butter Sandies (middle)

Recipe: Soft Ginger Cookies (back)

Fun and portable, this easy dessert stuffs sweet cream cheese icing between two flat cylinders of spiced carrot cake.

Recipe: Inside-Out Carrot Cakes

These moist, chewy chocolate cookies have a pleasant ginger kick and are a real crowd pleaser.

Recipe: Ginger Chocolate Cookies

Use a sharp knife, a 1/2-inch cookie cutter, or the narrow end of a 1/2-inch plain pastry tip to cut holes out of half the cookies before baking.

Recipe: Raspberry Shortbread Sandwiches

Dulce de leche is a thick, rich sauce made by reducing milk for hours. It’s a staple sweet in many Latin American countries.

Recipe: Dulce de Leche Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies

Flake salt retains its shape during baking, so you get a little crunch.

Recipe:Walnut Shortbread Cookies with Flake Salt and Citrus

These spice-filled cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Recipe: Candied Ginger-Citrus Cookies

The dough for these peppermint-flavored cookies can be made and then frozen for up to two weeks.

Recipe: Candy Cane Cookies

These easy (only 5 ingredients!) caramel cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Recipe: Carmelized-Sugar Cookies

Rich, buttery shortbread sandwiches raspberry jam for an easy but elegant cookie.

Recipe: Raspberry Window Shortbread

These almondy cookies are a snap to make, and you can store them airtight for up to 3 days.

Recipe: Chinese Almond Cookies

Biscotti is the ultimate cookie for dunking. Try one of our favorites with a steaming mug of coffee.

Recipe: Gingerbread Biscotti

Recipe: Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti

Recipe: Cornmeal Biscotti

These flourless cookie bites are a delicious cross between a brownie and a soft cookie—the orange zest adds a bit of contrast.

Recipe:Chocolate Orange Cookie Cups

These rich drop cookies taste like chocolate-covered macadamia nut candies.

Recipe: Chocolate-Macadamia Nut Clusters

These cookies are best the day they are filled, but you can make both the cookies and the filling up to 3 days ahead.

Recipe: Chocolate Thumbprints

For fun, top these airy coffee meringue cookies with a single espresso bean.

Recipe: Coffee Meringues

A trip to New York inspired Jeannie Lee of Marin County, California, to develop this rich, cranberry-filled cookie.

Recipe: Cranberry Rugelach

These pretty star-shaped cookies are full of buttery cashews. Crisp buttery rounds taste like Christmas in a cookie jar.

Recipe: Cashew Stars

Recipe: Dutch Spice Cookies

Cut these cookies in any shape; decorate them with powdered sugar icing and large-crystal sugar, if you like.

Recipe: Favorite Cutout Cookies

If you like, you can decorate these lacy, candylike cookies with more chocolate, piped in fine lines.

Recipe: Florentines

These palmiers look impressively hard to make, but actually, the opposite is true. As with any super-buttery dough, chilling it makes it much easier to slice.

Recipe: Cardamom Brown-Sugar Palmiers

We love these frosted ginger cookies’ soft texture and bright spice flavor. Frosted ginger cookies are perfect for gifts and Christmas cookie swaps.

Recipe: Frosted Ginger Cookies

Heather Allen of Aptos, California, grew up making Louisiana Pecan Balls every Christmas with her parents; now she makes them with her children.

Recipe: Louisiana Pecan Balls

Recipe: Florentine Wedding Cakes

These cookies are a holiday twist on traditional pinwheels, in which plain and chocolate doughs are swirled together.

Recipe: Gingerbread Pinwheels

These cookies, less sweet and slightly richer than classic tea cakes, are baked in S shapes.

Recipe: Greek Almond Tea Cakes

You can store these fruit- and nut-filled cookies airtight for up to 2 days.

Recipe: Lemon Fruit Swirls

What’s better than nutella? Having it in sandwich-cookie form!

Recipe: Hazelnut Nutella Sandwich Cookies

Store these crisp mint-chocolate chip cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Recipe: Mint Chippers

These soft, yielding cookies have a double dose of chocolate. They’re the perfect foil for rich, gooey peanut butter ice cream.

Recipe:Peanut-Butter Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches

Madeleine pans have shell-shaped indentations and are usually used to make the sponge cake-like cookie traditional in France, but it’s a charming shape for any cookie.

Recipe: Orange Butter Shells

These rich, fudgy cookies are better when slightly underbaked, as our recipe directs.

Recipe: Double Chocolate Cookies

Look for large-crystal decorating sugar to coat theses super-simple cookies (2 ingredients!) at cake-decorating supply stores or well-stocked supermarkets.

Recipe: Palmiers

The best accompaniment to these indulgent cookies is a cold glass of milk. The recipe was developed by Marlene Sorosky Gray, the award-winning author of The Dessert Lover’s Cookbook.

Recipe: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip-Oatmeal Cookies

You can’t taste the zucchini in these cookies, but it adds vitamins, fiber, and a nice moist texture.

Recipe: Zucchini Cookies

For best results, bake these French-style macaron on cooking parchment.

Recipe: Peanut-Chocolate Macaron

The Sandbakelsers come from Florence Erickson Burrows Fowler. They’re traditionally baked in small, fluted tart pans, available where specialty or Scandinavian bakeware is sold.

Recipe: Sandbakelser

Masa flour (available in well-stocked supermarkets) and coconut give these buttery wedges of Brown Sugar Masa Shortbread an earthy flavor and texture.

Recipe: Brown Sugar Masa Shortbread

Recipe: Scottish Shortbread

These pretty cutouts have translucent candy windows.

Recipe: Stained-Glass Cookies

Decorate these thick, soft Lemon Sugar Cookies with powdered sugar icing and chopped candied peel, or, before baking, sprinkle them with large crystal sugar, available at baking supply stores.

Recipe: Lemon Sugar Cookies

Recipe: Twin Stars

Napoleon’s Hats are almond-filled pastries shaped like three-cornered hats. When she smells them baking, Ellen Taylor of Rathdrum, Idaho, always remembers her grandmother’s Christmas baking.

Recipe: Napoleon’s Hats

Recipe: Walnut-Lemon Packets (pictured)

You can store these crunchy oatmeal-raisin cookies airtight for up to 3 days.

Recipe: Crisp Oatmeal-Fruit Strips

These may look humble, but they have big, beautiful flavors.

Recipe: Sugar- and Spice-Dusted Ginger Chew Cookies

Warmed with a hint of cinnamon, these delicately sweet cookies have a slightly sandy texture and taste great with a glass of Moroccan mint tea.

Recipe:Almond Butter Crescents

You won’t be able to stop at just one of these of these rich, nut-studded chocolate cookies.

Recipe: Chocolate Hazelnut Domes

“I grew up inhaling whoopie pies, bless my mother’s soul,” says cookbook author Eric Gower. “Although I would like to offer her recipe, I’m afraid that just reading the quantity of trans fats (Crisco) called for might incite cardiac arrest! This healthier version tastes even better.”

Recipe: Matcha Whoopie Pies

The trick to a good ice cream sandwich: Make it and freeze it only briefly before eating, or thaw until at least slightly pliable.

Recipe: Ice Cream Gingersnap Sandwiches