What’s Your Holiday Cookie Showstopper?

Never have I ever wanted you guys to put together a link to a list of all of these recipes with recipes included. BEGGING.

Our cookie box always includes three trusted recipes and a new one rotates through every once in a while. We must have espresso snow caps, chewy molasses cookies, and orange cranberry slice and bakes. We also do the peanut butter balls dipped in white chocolate, but those are more candy than cookie, I guess. I consider these three recipes non-negotiable for our annual family bake.

It’s a close tie between millionaire’s shortbread and Smitten Kitchen’s Austrian Shortbread – I make my own cranberry filling instead of the raspberry jam it calls for, although everyone assumes it’s raspberry anyway.

ALWAYS the family classic: gingerbread “sandwich” bites (Lebkuchenschnitten) with definitely the classic raisin-nuts-honey-cacao filling and usually a couple of alternative fillings like cranberries and additions like marzipan and all drenched in dark chocolate covering and roasted walnuts from my parents tree!
I still have one baking session with my dad every year (he is turning 78 soon, I am 43;b). When I was little my parens let me have left over gingerbread dough to get creative with and cookie-cut and cover away:). Now I have learned to make Zimtsterne (Cinnamon stars) with almonds and meringue and oat short bread cookies covered in dark chocolate, pistacio, candid ginger, nuts, lemon-cugar-frosting and … for the bf and to give to friends, neighbours and extended family. I need a few sessions each advent and it really gets me into the mood and calms me when it maybe gets a little too much with the darkness and consumerism;b… . Xmas Baking for me is pure love:D.

My mouth is watering reading through this thread! Mmm! The comments are a sweet-tooth’s paradise!

Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate hazelnut linzer cookies are outstanding. I use strained raspberry jam for the filling. Everyone loves these.

I am convinced that the Angel (Dream) Bars from the Joy of Cooking bumped me from a B to an A- in high school chemistry. I usually made cookies for my teachers at Christmastime, and my Chemistry teacher demanded that I give her the recipe when the school break ended. They’ve now become a staple in our Christmas cookie rotation, although I haven’t had to use them for anymore grade enhancements since.

Holiday cookies & treats are a Huge Thing in my family. We create a cookie bar station each year to graze upon w/ a drink & spiced cider station w/ dozens of holiday mugs. Over the years it’s grown into a potluck of sharing w/ to go boxes & bags for everyone to pack up their favorites. We have the classics: sugar cookies w/ icing, chocolate crinkles, snickledoodles, shortbreads, fudges, quick breads, cakes, our family’s Nordic/Scandi Butter cookies (riff on Mex wedding/Danish wedding style) & spice spritz.
One year my mom didn’t make her shortbread jam bars & my brother teases about it & will never let her forget! :) I like to tweak old classics into something new: For spritz one year citrus, the other spiced. Walnut or pecan is classic for the Scandi butter cookies yet I’ll swap out local hazelnuts & find it much improved. Still pondering what I’ll bring this year!

Came for the post, stayed for the comments! I will add Deb Perelman’s Unfussy Sugar Cookies as a great way to bake on a whim and get some snazzy cookies made quickly!
https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/12/unfussy-sugar-cookies/

I lose my mind at Christmas and make a huge box for cookies for about 25 people. It is ridiculous, but it makes me happy and let’s my creative/ batshit crazy sides merge. I start planning months in advance, baking/ shopping weeks in advance and, finally, this year, recruited a helper to help on day 4 of baking. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJCfH3_hQRR/ I’ve been wanting to send a box to a stranger so, if you love cookies and need a little lift this year (or know someone who does), hit me up on the ‘gram! I’m @wilsoninthemiddle. Xoxo!

I remember reading an article several years ago about the tradition of eating ginger pigs for luck and prosperity. Since then, I’ve baked gingerbread pig cookies every year around the holidays and given them to friends.

I’ve made those zebra cookies for the past few years since the recipe was published and they’re such a hit!
This year I’m making cookie boxes to gift to friends and it’s so hard to narrow down the recipes. So far I have cherry and pistachio icebox cookies ready to go in the freezer, the zebra cookies on deck, and looking forward to trying Ottolenghi’s “soft gingerbread tiles with rum butter glaze” and amaretti with honey and orange blossom… and MOST excited for these Aperol Spritz Spritz cookies from the kitchn https://www.thekitchn.com/aperol-spritz-spritz-recipe-23252561 Just need to track down a cookie gun! I love cookies!

I like to bake my German Christmas cookies. Many of them are with nuts and a sweet and tart note. My absolute favorite ones are “Spitzbuben” (Rascals). Made with butter, sugar, flour, toasted ground almonds, lemon peel, and red currant jelly. Swoon worthy, but a little labor intensive.

Everything-Bagel Rugelach With Onion Jam Recipe – so delicious, so unexpected, and the leftover onion jam is great on sandwiches.

https://www.seriouseats.com/everything-bagel-rugelach-onion-jam-recipe

If you are looking for a chewy gingerbread cookie, this one is the platonic ideal:

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/never-fail-chewy-molasses-cookie-recipe

I am not gluten-free, but these are some scrumptious little gems and so I am passing along the recipe for anyone who may be interested. Almond Cloud Cookies (gluten and diary free): https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/almond-cloud-cookies-recipe

Any suggestions for a snowball cookie without nuts? I’ve always made “Noel Nutballs”–a crisco cookie mix recipe. We all LOVE them. But I’ve recently realized that I’m pretty sensitive to the walnuts/pecans in them (almonds too). I tried just omitting the walnuts, but the texture was weird and the flavor was a little off. So I think I need a “real” recipe to go with… any thoughts?

I never EVER make Christmas cookies, but I really went for it a couple years ago with this painted peppermint beauty, and it sleighed (pun very much intended). https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020646-peppermint-stripe-cookies

https://pin.it/5sC62QF
I would be tarred and feathered if I didn’t make Italian Rainbow Cookies! I have made them every Christmas for the last 10 years. I double this recipe to fit a half sheet pan. Having the proper tools makes this a relatively easy recipe. You will never want the store/bakery version again. Definitely a showstopper!

We have traditional cookies for christmas so most households bake or buy to offer one or both. It’s usually a social media frenzy when it comes to preferences. One of them is a butter cookie with nuts and powdered sugar on top called kourabiedes and the other one is a soft semolina cookie that is dipped in a honey syrup and topped with walnuts called melomakarona. So theres a war between #teamkourabiedes and #teammelomakarona. I’m 100% #teammelomakarona but I find them tricky to make so I usually make kourabiedes (which I cut in shapes rather than round bites or ovals which you usually see) and buy melomakarona for my home!

I love to put together goody boxes for friends and to snack on for Christmas. There is usually something new but the standbys include gingerbread biscotti, jam thumbprints, shortbread, and Smitten Kitchens coffee toffee, marshmallows, and Rugglech. It’s a project but also a total joy. One of my favorite things to do in the winters evenings.

Not a cookie but the only Christmas baking I do for certain every year.
https://www.nanaimo.ca/docs/about-nanaimo/nanaimobarrecipe.pdf

This post is so fun! Every year I make Alison Roman’s Danish Butter cookies, Dorie Greenspan’s beurre and sel jammers (w/raspberry jam – a bit fussy but SO worth it), and chewy molasses ginger cookies. And last year I discovered Sarah Kieffer’s amazing lemon olive oil pistachio sugar cookies which are gorgeous and so yummy! I also love Shauna Sever’s heirloom sugar cookies.

Has anyone tried this recipe from Molly Baz? I’m intrigued and they have awesome reviews! https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/brown-butter-and-pistachio-sables

I was diagnosed with celiac disease a year ago, so I need to avoid gluten for the rest of forever. I’ll be making the New York Times Cooking gluten free chocolate chip cookies, which are made with almond flour and bake up into beautiful bakery-looking cookies. With a little Maldon salt sprinkled on top, they are perfect. And everyone goes, “these are gluten free?!?!?”

My family and friends only request one type of cookie from me: peppermint dark chocolate meringues. They are incredibly easy and only require egg whites, sugar, dark chocolate chips and peppermint flavoring. I whip up 3 – 4 dozen at a time and leave them in the oven overnight to set up (preheat the oven and then turn off when the cookies go in). I have the recipe written by my mom on an aged 3 x 5 card.