12 Days of Holiday Cookie 2020!

With a paintbrush and bit of icing, our verdant green trees get a romantic dappling of winter snow. Follow along with our simple tutorial to make these festive cookies.

Red velvet gets a magically marbled look in these slice-and-bake cookies. Two doughs—one creamy peppermint and one crimson mocha—get folded and swirled together before being rolled in festive nonpareils.

Amisha Gurbani of The Jam Lab considers pinwheels to be the quintessential Christmas cookie. Here, she swirls halva and pistachio dough into a cookie log, then rolls them in dried rose petal sugar. 

Complete with two icy designs, these cookies look like the intricate inner workings of a snowflake. In reality, a simple series of lines, dots, and “V” shapes make up its pattern, offering the gold standard of royal iced cookies: easy execution, dazzling results.

This recipe is inspired by the holiday honey bread cookies of Croatia known as Licitars. Since the 16th century, these brilliant red cookies have been displayed as ornaments and edible gifts during the Christmas season. Our warmly spiced adaptation pairs mellow honey with bold cardamom and swaps the traditional gelatin glaze with an easier-to-maneuver and tastier Vanilla-Almond Royal Icing.

This traditional Jewish pastry is crescent-shaped and bursting with a jammy filling. Made with a combination of butter and cream cheese, the dough is light, flaky, and downright irresistible. Use your favorite fruit jam, or a combination of jams, to create a simply perfect filling. 

Popular throughout central and Eastern Europe around the holidays, these jewel-toned cookies consist of a tender cream cheese dough folded over your favorite thick preserves or jam and dusted with confectioners sugar. Our recipe is true to the original, save for one decadent detail: rather than dusting with confectioners sugar, we drizzled our cookies with a creamy glaze for a festive touch.

Based on the classic caramelitas, these buttery, nutty oat bars have a rich chocolate filling punctuated by dulce de leche. With a firm streusel-like base and topping protecting the gooey middle, these bars travel exceptionally well and will be equally well-received.

Pearl sugar saves the day again with these beautiful, polka-dotted ginger cookies. Acting as gorgeous decoration and a protective crunchy layer, pearlsugar helps make sure the cookies arrive to your far-flung loved ones in serious style. The molasses also helps the cookies stay fresher for longer, as the hygroscopic sugar keeps them moist.

Palmiers might just be the perfect cookie: crisp, buttery layers of puff pastry encased in caramelized sugar. It’s hard to improve on something so classically perfect, but we think our version with cardamom, pecans, and vanilla bean comes pretty close.

Slice–and–bake cookies are easy to make and easier to ship. Packed with holiday nonpareils and glistening with sparkling sugar, this recipe makes enough to fill several care packages.

Rebecca Firth from the blog Displaced Housewife crafted these little jewel-toned thumbprintcookies. They are a cinch to throw together and require zero fridge time. The Five-Spice Cranberry Jam is a holiday favorite in her house—consider making extra to serve with your next cocktail hour cheese board!