Gallery: Holiday Cookies Recipes
Freshly baked cookies are welcomed treat anytime of the year, particularly during the holidays where there's plenty of chocolate, spice and everything nice. As you top off a holiday feast or find something to tasty to leave for Santa (or for yourself), browse through our 27 delectable cookie recipes. This year we offer a varied number, from restaurant-style lebkuchen to nostalgic Betty Crocker-based recipes.
Apricot Confections
A little sweet, a little tart, a little chewy. Apricot Confections combine apricots for these sugar-dusted poppers.
Cheerios Cereal Bars
These no-bake bars were finalists in recent in-house judging for the featured seasonal cookie offering at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.
Cherry Winks
These are based on a Betty Crocker recipe that dates to the 1960s or earlier. From Michelle Poteaux, co-owner and pastry chef of Bastille in Alexandria.
Chocolate Chunk Cookies With Nutella
The original recipe called for only unsweetened Nutella or hazelnut paste, but we tested it with the widely available, sweetened kind and the cookies tasted great.
Chocolate Crackle Cookies
These might look like other cookies you've tried, but they have an especially rich chocolaty flavor.
Cinnamon and nutmeg are quite subtle in this sablelike cookie.Chocolate-Pear Lebkuchen
You'll find these on the petits fours plates served during the holidays at 2941 restaurant in Falls Church.
Cocoa-Almond Wafers
These cookies are baked twice, like biscotti, but they are sliced much thinner. Spread half of them with raspberry preserves or a bittersweet chocolate ganache to make unusual cookie sandwiches.
Coconut Wafers
To ensure crispness, make certain the cookies are fully baked. If you are shaping the cookies, keep them warm, resting the tray on the open oven door, until you are ready to mold them.
Eggnog Bars
Your favorite holiday drink in a cookie. These are rich enough to serve as a plated dessert, with crushed macadamia nuts and a dollop of whipped cream.
Coconut and sweetened condensed milk make these nuggets chewy.Haute-meal Cookies
Chef Michel Richard set out to produce a cookie that would create a legacy. Because this one contains oatmeal and bacon, he might have achieved cookie immortality.
Honey, Toasted Pine Nut and Pumpkin Seed Bars
You can substitute other types of dried fruit in these chewy, chocolate-topped bars, based on what you have on hand.
Lemon Ginger Bars
Because these are made with crystallized ginger and dried ground ginger instead of fresh ginger, they do not have a burning spiciness. Lemon zest in the bars and lemon juice in the glaze provide a lovely contrast.
Lemon Yogurt Drop Cookies
These are soft, tender and textured. A different fruit-flavored yogurt (smooth, not with chunks of fruit) may be substituted.
Macadamia Butterscotch Bars
Rich, chewy and sweet, these blondie-type bars are packed with dried cherries, nuts and chocolate chunks.
Maggie Austin Signature Cookies
Use your family's monogram as a canvas in these creamy peppermint enrobed sugar cookies from custom cake decorator Maggie Austin.
Oatmeal Coco-Nutters
These are no-bake and kid-friendly to assemble once the heated mixtures have cooled.
Orange Peel- and Rosemary-scented Butter Cookies
Orange and rosemary make a lovely combination for these tender cookies.
These crisp meringue cookies offer a kiss of peppermint. Pistachio and Cardamom Cookies
Pistachio and cardamom are made for each other and complement these dairy-free cookies.
These egg-free cookies are also known as Russian or Mexican tea cakes.Sesame Halvah Cookies
The combination of sesame seeds and halvah (candy made from ground sesame seeds and honey) makes these vegan cookies a nutty treat.
These are savory two-bite treats.Three-Pepper Spice Cookies
White, black and cayenne pepper pack in a punch in this chocolate-dipped cookie.
Adapted from "Cookie Swap!" by Lauren Chattman (Workman, 2010).White Chocolate, Cherry and Pistachio Chunkies
These cookies marry the sublime flavors of white chocolate, cherry and pistachio.