Sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, butter cookies and more will add a little sparkle, a little dazzle and lots of memories to your holiday season.
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Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies with Watercolor Icing
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These crisp, airy cookies taste like old-fashioned bakery cookies—but they're decorated in a totally modern way that's fun and so kid-friendly. The "canvas" is royal icing, and the "paint" is just food coloring!
How to Decorate Dazzling Cookies
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Chocolate-Dipped Espresso Stars
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These buttery cookies are a staff favorite at Zingerman's Bakehouse in Ann Arbor and look beautiful on a holiday cookie plate. The recipe comes from the cookbook Zingerman's Bakehouse Celebrate Every Day (Chronicle, $30).
Zingerman's Cooking Classes Teach What You Knead to Know (Really!)
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Pepparkakor
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Kim Van Patten says these Swedish spice cookies are popular at Christmas. Heart shapes are traditional to encourage kindness and sweetness. It certainly is nice that her Iowa State Fair blue-ribbon winners are mixed up in one saucepan!
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Macarons
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This festive recipe comes from Nathan Sivitz of Macaron Bar in Cincinnati. Try with his White Chocolate and Vanilla Whipped Ganache—or fill cookies with fruit curd, dulce de leche or dark chocolate ganache. Check out Sivitz's step-by-step guide and problem-solving tips.
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Vanilla Bean Sables
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Simple. Elegant. Buttery. These vanilla bean cookies are the perfect slice-and-bake treat, and you can make them four ways.
5 Sweet Holiday Gifts
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Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprint Cookies
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These easy, nostalgic-tasting cookies are a favorite of Stephanie Simmons, the Wisconsin blogger behind Blue Bowl Recipes and author of the cookbook, The One-Bowl Baker. Use your favorite preserves—Stephanie likes raspberry.
The Midwest's Best Cookie Recipes
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Sandbakkels
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Sandbakkels means "sand tarts" because the cookies (which, flipped over, can double as tiny shells to hold cream and fruit) have such a fine, crisp texture. Find them in Shauna Sever's book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland.
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Sugar Cookies Like You Remember
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Nutmeg lends unmistakable holiday flavor to these puffy, old-fashioned cut-out cookies. They do spread a bit, so don't use this recipe for delicate shapes. It's best-suited for circles, bells and the like.
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Peanut Butter Temptations
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Calling all peanut butter fans! These cookies offer double-the-PB compared to the classic peanut blossom cookie with a chocolate kiss on top. And they couldn't be easier.
So-Good Peanut Butter Dessert Recipes
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Mindy Segal's Chocolate Chip Cookies
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These to-die-for cookies use special chocolate and two kinds of salt, and they call for an overnight chill—and you can absolutely taste the difference. Because of the expense and time involved, we don't recommend them for any old weekend, but they are incredible for a gift or other special occasion. The recipe comes from Chicago chef Mindy Segal's cookbook Cookie Love.
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Valencia Delights
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Orange and chocolate: a holiday cookie match that will tempt every Santa to take seconds. This recipe comes from Jill Drury in Milwaukee, who created these cookies with her grandmother.
Favorite Family Holiday Recipes
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Oaxacan Mexican Chocolate Cookies
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The recipe for these ultra-rich, cinnamon-laced cookies comes from the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.
Decadent Chocolate Dessert Recipes
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Caramel Heavenlies
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Graham crackers form the base for this bar cookie with layers of marshmallows, brown sugar, almonds and coconut. The recipe comes from Georgine Simmonds of Genesee, Michigan.
Best Holiday Desserts
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Lebkuchen
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The secret to perfect lebkuchen is in the resting phase after glazing. An apple wedge in the storage container provides moisture that softens the cookies. This German classic is from Shauna Sever's book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland.
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Crispy Gingerbread
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This festively spiced recipe (with a hint of orange zest) makes thin, crunchy cookies that work well for gingerbread houses, edible place cards and ornaments.
Gingerbread Recipes for the Holidays
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Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels
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These cookies are easier than they look. Make one batch of dough, divide it in half, and blend cocoa into one portion and crushed candy canes and peppermint extract into the other.
Holiday Peppermint Recipes
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Fanciful Raspberry Ribbons
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These festive "bake-and-slice" cookies look stunning on a tray of holiday desserts.
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Lemon Sugar Cookies
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The light lemon flavor gives these sparkling sugar cookies a little special twist. Judy Kiburz Harrison's recipe won best-in-class at the Iowa State Fair.
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Pistachio Cranberry Icebox Cookies
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These cookies from the Inn at Cedar Falls in Logan, Ohio, make a colorful treat anytime of year.
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Tosca Diamonds
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These cookies are extremely rich, so cut them into small bars. We love the indulgent flourish of the caramel sauce, but the cookies are delicious without it.
11 Scandinavian Cookie Recipes
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Holiday Seven-Layer Bars
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Chocolate, nuts, coconut and more fill our easy-to-make bar cookies. Mixed dried fruit bits and candy-coated milk chocolate pieces are among the layers that make this bar cookie distinctive.
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Polvorones
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Polvorones are Mexico's crispy, airy answer to shortbread (you may know them as Mexican wedding cookies). Food writer Shauna Sever coats them in cinnamon sugar for a churro-like effect.
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Lingonberry Hearts
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A "window" on the top of these cookies shows off the jam inside, but if you're feeling lazy, just sandwich the preserves between two solid cookies. They'll taste just as good.
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Apricot and Orange Blossom Kolacky
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This tender pastry cookie, a cousin to Jewish rugelach, has Polish origins. In her book Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland, Shauna Sever's apricot filling nods to Hungary.
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Fat Molasses Cookies
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Packed with flavor from molasses, ginger, cinnamon and brown sugar, these cookies look especially nice when cut with a scalloped or round cutter and sprinkled with coarse sugar or crystallized ginger.
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Triple Peanut Butter Streusel Bars
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Dry-roasted peanuts, peanut butter-flavored pieces and peanut butter bring triple flavor to this make-ahead bar cookie.
Our Best Bar Cookies
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Anisette Buttons
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"Anisettes feel so Italian because it's about abundance," says Chicago food writer Shauna Sever, of these deliciously soft, cakey cookies with a licorice flavor. "Small bites, but a huge yield."
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Date Pinwheel Cookies
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Minneapolis blogger Alyssa Ruesch says it's not Christmas without these slice-and-bake cookies. It's her grandma's recipe.
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White-Chocolate Cherry Shortbread
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Dip these cherry-studded cookies in melted white chocolate, then roll in nonpareils and edible glitter for extra color.
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Cranberry Date Puffs
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These addictive, puff pastry-wrapped cookies have a sweet, nutty filling and are delicious when they're still slightly warm. If you have a food processor, they're a cinch to make.
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