124 holiday cookie recipes

Peanut butter blossom kisses with sugar-rolled cookies and a chocolate kiss pressed warm into each top. The classic holiday cookie tray standard, soft and chewy with a crackly sugar crust.

Traditional New Mexican biscochitos made with lard, egg yolks, anise, and vanilla. Rolled, cut into shapes, and baked until tender. New Mexico's official state cookie and a holiday staple.

Classic springerle: traditional German anise cookies embossed with intricate designs, dried overnight, and baked pale, then mellowed for a week into crisp, picture-perfect holiday treats.

Scotch shortbread balls dipped in fudgy chocolate frosting. Buttery, sandy crumb with a glossy chocolate cap. Holiday cookie tin essential.

Lemon poinsettia cookies decorate buttery lemon shortbread with cream cheese spread, sliced strawberries, and mint leaves arranged like holiday flowers.

Surprise-center butter cookies with 4 hidden fillings: Andes mints, cherries, chocolate chips, and pecans. Each batch gets its own color-coded icing. A fun holiday baking project.

No-bake coconut candy balls with a melted chocolate center, made from just 5 ingredients. A prize-winning recipe that's freezer-friendly and looks stunning on holiday cookie trays.

Baked fig and raisin pudding with crumbled waffle cookies, cocoa, walnuts, and warm spices, cooked in a water bath. A rich, old-fashioned holiday dessert served warm with hard sauce.

Star-shaped chocolate sandwich cookies cut from a chewy cocoa-and-chip sheet bake, then filled with sweet cream cheese frosting. A festive holiday cookie that looks fancy but skips the rolled-dough fuss.

Lemon roll-out cookies with sour cream in the dough for a tender crumb, brushed with lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar before baking. The bright citrusy cookie cutter staple for any holiday tray.

Chocolate-filled ravioli cookies are sweet pasta-shaped pillows with a crushed chocolate-walnut filling, sealed with fork tines and brushed warm with honey. The Italian-American holiday cookie that doubles as edible art.

Irish cream balls combine crushed vanilla wafers, toasted pecans, cocoa, and Irish cream liqueur into no-bake boozy bites rolled in powdered sugar. The grown-up holiday cookie tray staple.

Patty Ann's cheese cake tarts: bite-size cream cheese pastry shells with two fillings, pecan and coconut. Muffin-tin desserts for holiday cookie trays.

Tender rolled sugar cookies made with Neufchatel cheese, brown sugar, and butter-nut flavoring. Cut into shapes and decorate with a simple powdered sugar icing. Great for holidays.

Slice-and-bake Swedish coconut cookies with golden edges and a buttery, tender crumb. Shape the dough into logs, chill, slice thin, and bake. Makes a whopping 8 dozen from one batch. Ideal for holiday cookie swaps.

Spiced cherry biscotti studded with candied cherries and almonds, warmed with nutmeg, and dusted with cinnamon-nutmeg sugar. A ruby-flecked holiday coffee cookie.