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Celebrate the holidays with a festive assortment of cookies—but without all the baking! Here's how to pull it all together.
Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. Crisp edges, chewy middles, and so, so easy to make. Try this wildly-popular chocolate chip cookie recipe for yourself. Make bakery-style chocolate chip cookies with these tips. Here's an Allrecipes classic and much-loved chocolate chip cookie recipe that uses instant pudding mix in the batter. The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies. These classic sugar cookies are great for cookie-cutting and decorating during the holidays or anytime you feel festive. Quick and easy sugar cookies! Terrific plain or with candies in them.
This recipe uses basic ingredients you probably already have. Big Soft Ginger Cookies. Made with a hint of molasses, these ginger cookies stay soft for days. Beth's Spicy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. With a little experimenting, I came up with these chewy, spicy, oatmeal raisin cookies. They make your kitchen smell wonderful while they are baking. They almost remind me of Christmas because the spices smell so good. Brooke's Best Bombshell Brownies.
Seduction straight from the oven! Rich, dark, and chocolatey, this brownie recipe uses cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate morsels, and butter, of course, to make an ultra intense chocolate treat. These wonderful iced pumpkin spice cookies are a great fall treat made from canned pumpkin and drizzled with glaze. Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. Peanut butter cups wrapped in a peanut butter cookie for the most peanut buttery of treats. This is a quick and easy frosting recipe using ingredients you most likely already have on hand.
Use whatever food colors you like! Peanut Butter Bars I. These peanut butter bars taste just like peanut butter cups. Raspberry and Almond Shortbread Thumbprints.
Chocolate Dipped Pineapple-Coconut Macaroons. Oreo Stuffed Peppermint Cookies Cookies. Ron's chewy chocolate cookies are completely flour-free. Aarti Sequeira adds subtle spice to ginger cookies with a touch of garam masala. Sandwich vanilla ice cream or your favorite holiday flavor with gingersnap cookies for a big bite of dessert. Cook Time 10 minutes.
Shortbread thumbprint cookie filled with raspberry jam, and drizzled with glaze. Chocolate cookies coated in confectioners' sugar Cracked Sugar Cookies I. This recipe makes a nice sugar cookie with a soft center. This dough is the most versatile of all holiday cookie doughs. The creaming method is key: Giada De Laurentiis adds a citrus zip to these tender ricotta cookies by mixing fresh lemon zest into the dough and the sweet glaze.
Valerie Bertinelli whips up this classic Italian bakery treat just like her mom did during the holiday season. Top these easy cookies with cinnamon and sugar before baking until the cookies are set but the centers are still nice and soft. Simple and decadent, Ina's Coconut Macaroons make great take-along, cookie-tin treats.
Melissa d'Arabian uses white rice flour, tapioca flour and buckwheat flour for her gluten-free take on traditional gingerbread men. Because there isn't any gluten, you don't have to worry about overworking the dough when using up your cutout scraps. Double down on the peanut butter goodness in Nancy Fuller's traditional blossoms. Incorporate smooth peanut butter into the cookie batter before folding in peanut butter chips.
The intense peanut butter flavor pairs perfectly with the addition of a chocolate kiss candy in the center. With just three ingredients and five minutes' prep time, Ree's fudge is perfect in a pinch. Turn the refrigerator-friendly treat into a dessert for the holiday table by topping the finished chocolate fudge with crushed peppermint candies. Celebrate Hanukkah with Ina Garten's tender cookies filled with apricot jam, cinnamon sugar and golden raisins.
Katie Lee's thumbprint cookies can be made entirely in the food processor. If you gravitate toward the edge pieces in a pan of brownies, these cookies are your dream come true: If you like your brownies a little underbaked, bake these cookies until they're just slightly glossy on top. For a twist on a brownie sundae, make an ice cream sandwich with them. Think of your favorites — oatmeal cookies, cheesecake and blondies — and wrap them up into these irresistible treats.
Anne's soft and chewy cookies are a little spicy and a little exotic. Roll the cookies in turbinado sugar sugar in the raw to make them super sweet with a crystal crunch. Facebook fans voted this classic, versatile their favorite. Mix up a few batches and bake it three ways: These minty, pink-striped meringues are easy to make and use a clever decorating trick: Paint lines of food coloring gel up the sides of a pastry bag before filling it with meringue, and each cookie will come out striped as you pipe it.
You can use this same trick with frosting for cupcakes. A very happy marriage of brownie and cheesecake, these Chocolate Cheesecake Candy Cane Bars always get rave reviews. Marc Murphy takes shortbread cookies to a whole new level by layering the traditional recipe with dark chocolate and homemade cookie butter. Garnish the glistening squares with flaky salt before serving.
Jeff is way more into blondies than brownies. Chewy, crunchy, nutty and just a bit fruity, this cookie will stand out among an often crowded holiday sweets table! Making candy sounds like a really complicated thing to do, which is why Ina likes to make chocolate bark, which is quite simple. Temper white chocolate in the microwave, a foolproof way that also cuts down on prep time. Once the chocolate is poured onto a baking sheet, add your favorite toppings and then let it harden.
Ina chose items that look good and taste good together: These snowy Mexican wedding cookies are nutty and delicate, the perfect after-dinner treat. Alton rolls two doughs together, chocolate and peppermint, to make a festive slice-and-bake cookie. Melissa d'Arabian decks out classic holiday shortbread cookies with a fruity topping. Sunny dresses up classic peanut butter cookies by rolling them in sparkly turbinado sugar and adding a fruity strawberry jam filling. Crisp, sweet and nutty, Anne's Italian biscotti make great homemade gifts or after-dinner nibbles.
Aarti Sequeira adds subtle spice to ginger cookies with a touch of garam masala. Shortbread is Ina's favorite cookie for the holidays. You can make many variations with one easy dough: Serve the shortbread plain, dipped in chocolate, or add pecans to the dough to make pecan shortbread. These crisp spiced cookies are addictive, but even Alton can't pinpoint the reason.
Giada likes these crisp cookies because she can snack on them all day — not just at dessert. She says of the white-chocolate-covered treats, "My favorite is to dip them in my coffee. Jeff's sandwich cookie is inspired by a cookie his wife, Sarah, makes for their family.
And since he turns everything into a sandwich, Sarah's cookies are stacked and filled with almond butter filling in this version. Anne's cookies are nearly guilt-free, as far as holiday treats go. Bobby's ideal chocolate chip cookie is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside — and appropriate any time of the year, especially on a holiday cookie platter. These fit the bill perfectly. This soft sandwich cookie brings Alex back to her childhood: The little touches — the lemon zest and cinnamon — are holiday flavors to me," she says.
Guy likes to add blondies to the mix of holiday cookies because people aren't expecting them to be on a cookie tray. Plus, everyone loves the play on words in the recipe name. When we asked our Facebook fans which cookie recipe they wanted the most, an overwhelming majority cried out for snickerdoodles. Food Network Kitchen's recipe comes out as chewy as the classic snickerdoodle, but with added apple flavor. Use smooth peanut butter for these classic cookies that pair perfectly with chocolate milk. Trisha's nut-filled cookies taste like little bites of pecan pie.
Tyler knows a perfect chocolate truffle can turn a holiday dessert into something much more special. Sunny's cookies are chewy and firm at the same time. Sandwich vanilla ice cream or your favorite holiday flavor with gingersnap cookies for a big bite of dessert. Pignoli cookies are standard at any Italian bakery. But they are the simplest of cookies to make at home, mixed in one bowl and ready in under an hour.
Anne Burrell's special touch? A bit of honey. Bobby's intense cookies are a chocolate-lover's dream.
They feature bittersweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, semisweet chocolate and even white chocolate. Trisha has a cookie party with her friends every Christmas. My sister, Beth, adapted this recipe from her church cookbook. I like to chop the cranberries and nuts finely so you get lots of flavor in every bite.
Geoffrey starts off his holiday with these cookies. Alton asks, "Can a mere five ingredients truly deliver holiday bliss? If the ingredients are chocolate, coconut, macadamia nuts, condensed milk and almond extract, yes! Park a tin or two of these jewels under the tree and make someone's year. Jamie Deen shares his old-fashioned favorite.
They have a wonderfully soft texture from using both shortening and butter. When you bake these cookies, your house will smell like Christmas! These are Ree's favorite childhood cookies. To decorate them, my mom would make different colors of egg yolk glaze in small glass dishes and we'd paint on the glaze to make different designs. Then, as the cookies baked, the glaze set and had a little bit of a stained-glass effect. Once they were cool, we'd decorate the detail and edges with white frosting. They have a really nice vintage quality to them. These savory cookies are crispy and crumbly.
Make them in advance and store in an airtight container for up to one week.
Pulse dates with cinnamon, ginger, cloves and apple juice before mixing in walnuts to make Ron Ben-Israel's rugelach filling. Bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate pack these cookies full of sweetness. Add walnuts, pecans or almonds for crunch. What could make a sugar cookie even more delicious? How about cocoa powder and melted semisweet chocolate? Use seedless raspberry preserves or jam sour cherry preserve is also great! Ree's chocolate truffle mixture is so scrumptious you might be tempted to eat it with a spoon.
A melted milk chocolate coating gives them a smooth finish, and a sprinkling of coarse sugar will add crunch to every chocolate-filled bite. Alex sandwiches raspberry jam in between two buttery star-shaped cookies to make this festive holiday treat that'll be the centerpiece of your dessert spread. Ron's chewy chocolate cookies are completely flour-free. Folding chocolate into a meringue base means your freshly baked cookies will have a shiny crust but will still be gooey inside.
Alton's easy macaroons use only four ingredients and take just 30 minutes to make. Bake until they develop a golden brown outside; they'll still be nice and moist in the middle.
Find the best Santa-worthy Christmas cookies and be the talk of the cookie exchange. From gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies to shortbread and gluten. Gingerbread, peppermint and meringue, oh my! Get the ultimate guide to Christmas cookies with this round up of the most amazing recipes.
Traditionally, spumoni is a molded Italian dessert featuring different layers of ice cream along with candied fruits and nuts. Jeff puts his twist on the Italian classic by turning it into a cookie complete with chocolate chips, pistachios and dried cherries. Cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom plus molasses give these cookies their holiday flavor. Ina's ultimate cookies are filled with spices: A coating of sugar before baking gives them a crinkly crust.
Anne is a dark-chocolate fan so she chops it up with walnuts to make these oatmeal cookies nice and chunky. Top them with a sprinkle of sea salt to give them a little something special. Sunny starts with a basic cookie recipe and then adds in cocoa powder, chocolate chips, coconut and pecans to give it the German chocolate cake twist. It's a simple cookie recipe that's ready in just 30 minutes. These treats are reminiscent of everyone's favorite peanut butter blossom cookies — a little more grown-up but just as addictive.
They stay fresh and delicious refrigerated in an airtight container. Melissa flavors her shortbread with a pinch of aromatic rosemary and fills it with chocolate chips. The buttery and sweet dough bakes into a nice flaky texture.
Bobby adds milk chocolate chips, toffee chips and toasted almonds to his blondie base. The butterscotch and molasses flavor from the dark and light sugars, plus toffee chips contrasts well with the chocolate and nuts. Careful not to overmix your batter in order to avoid a tough blondie.
Walnuts are the base for these powdered cookies that melt in your mouth. The crumbly and buttery texture is key, so if you're making these ahead, make sure they are cooled before storing them — otherwise they will get soggy. Sunny uses multicolored puffed rice cereal she likes Fruity Pebbles!
They'll spread nicely in the oven so be sure to space them well apart , resulting in a crisp-on-the-outside and chewy-on-the-inside dessert. This is basically Trisha's favorite chocolate chip cookie batter recipe, but she's replaced the egg with applesauce so you get the same great flavor without the raw egg.
Freeze the little balls of dough before dipping them in chocolate-almond bark, which helps them set more quickly. If you use regular milk chocolate, add a bit of coconut oil and it'll do the same trick. Food Network Kitchen made these cookies just for you: The combination of homemade pineapple jam and bittersweet chocolate means these gluten-free macaroon thumbprints will be winners at your next party. Damaris Phillips packs all of the great flavor of pecan pie into a hand-held bar cookie.
Add brightness to the sweet honey and brown sugar flavor with orange zest. Make a cherry, pistachio and brown sugar filling for Jeff Mauro's take on colorful pinwheel cookies, which are rolled in holiday sprinkles. You can make the cookie logs ahead of time, then slice and bake them just before guests arrive. Nancy folds white chocolate chips, pistachios and cranberries into her macadamia nut cookie dough for buttery cookies that have just the right amount of crunch.
Press a red-and-white-striped kiss into the center of each cookie right after they come out of the oven and are still warm. These are inspired by her recipe and dressed up for the holidays with the addition of crushed candy canes. They are easily adaptable to any season by substituting flavorings and candies. Have fun with them and get creative. They make great gifts too. These soft and tender cookies are made with cake mix and topped with a white chocolate-cream cheese frosting, so it's no surprise that they look and taste just like little cupcake tops.
It is one of those recipes that is very comforting," says The Kitchen co-host Marcela. These easy-to-make treats are inspired by the classic British dessert sticky toffee pudding. Instead of decorating the balls with sanding sugar, roll them in confectioners' sugar combined with a large pinch of ground cinnamon. These soft and crackly cookies are a staple in Italian bakeries. The espresso powder is there to complement and elevate the chocolate — it's subtle but totally worth it. These gluten- and dairy-free cookies are quite easy to make.
And because there is no flour or butter to compete with, the peanut butter flavor is intense! Peanut butter purists, go ahead and make these without the chocolate. Bake these nutty shortbread cookies in a tart pan for beautiful presentation. If you ever make it to my area, check them out; until then, enjoy the baking! What makes these easy-to-make bars so magical? The graham cracker crumbs and sweetened condensed milk magically come together to make an ooey-gooey bottom layer, and the bars are loaded with rich layers of chocolate chips, butterscotch, pecans and coconut.
Our festive Cornmeal Wreaths are topped with cornflakes and sprinkled with powdered sugar. These chocolate and vanilla Ribbon or Swirl Cookies have a hint of mint for holiday flair. They're a great make-ahead freezer dough that will impress all your guests through the holiday season. A walnut crust and cherry jam will make these Czech Squares a hit at your holiday table. Sable means "sandy" in French, and our classic French Double Chocolate Sable Cookies are a crumbly chocolate shortbread.
To keep them nice and sandy, be careful not to overmix the dough. For a more nuanced, complex gingerbread cookie, add a little kick in the form of cayenne pepper. Indulge in Claire Robinson's basic shortbread, chai tea shortbread and toasted pecan shortbread cookies, all by following one super-simple, five-ingredient recipe. A hit of cayenne perks up these Mexican-inspired cookies from Chefs vs. Crushed almonds and a drizzle of dulce de leche are decadent additions. Lemon squares, the favorite bar cookie, are dressed up for the holidays with clementine juice and wedges of blood oranges.
Crispy, buttery Citrus Shortbread gets a refreshing hit of citrus in this quick and easy take on a holiday classic. Sandra wishes every holiday cookie was as easy to make as these tropical-inspired sweets made with store-bought sugar cookie dough. Turn sugar cookies into a colorful display with easy colored icing and fun holiday shapes. Anne's version of Tarallucci, an Italian biscuit sometimes called Taralli , is served with a caramel dipping sauce and a warning: