Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Share
Fa-La-La Fabulous! 12 Cookies for the 12 Days of Christmas
Published over 1 year ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,
Take a hike, lords-a-leaping—we've got stand mixers-a-mixing. Instead of twelve drummers drumming, may I introduce you to a dozen friends who are far more attractive and certainly more tasty!
12 Days of Christmas Cookies
And, unlike those golden rings everyone's singing about, these won't require a second mortgage on your house.
These festive cookies are adorned with sweet-tart dried cranberries and crunchy pistachios. They're the perfect addition to your holiday cookie collection.
Italian Rainbow cookies are popular at Christmas, when they are called Neapolitan or Venetian cookies, perhaps to denote the colors of the flag of Italy.
These peanut butter blossom cookies are, like chewy and chocolatey like the classic but they also go a little glam with the addition of Guittard milk chocolate wafers. Otherwise, they're exactly the same as the kiss cookies your mom had waiting for you after school.
This Christmas cookie recipe has evolved over the years. These days, I prefer to roll out a softer, 1/4-inch (6.5 mm) thick cookie compared to when I was younger and desired a thinner, crispier cookie.
These old-fashioned peanut butter cookies, made with sugar, flour, peanut butter, and eggs, are like the cookies you grew up with, crispy, chewy, and peanut buttery.
These classic shortbread cookies are made with just 5 ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, and a pinch of sea salt. A simple, perfect approach to a beloved Scottish tradition that's a perfect Christmas cookie.
Viennese crescent cookies are a tradition in Austria. They're made with hazelnuts, shaped like a half-moon, and dusted with confectioners' sugar. One nibble and we think you'll understand why they're a classic.
These biscochitos are a New Mexican Christmas cookie classic. Their trademark flaky texture and flavor comes from using lard in the dough, along with cinnamon, sugar, anise, and brandy.
These chocolate ginger crinkle cookies are a pleasing riff on a familiar (and easy!) Christmas standby. Chunks of crystallized ginger and dark chocolate make for a rather grown-up experience of a childhood classic.
Lebkuchen are traditional German Christmas cookies that are subtly reminiscent of gingerbread. Although actually, we prefer to refer to them as "moments of perfectly spiced cut-out cookie deliciousness."
It’s simple: chocolate cookie dough surrounds a peanut butter center, and the whole is dredged in sugar before baking. In the oven, the cookie spreads out, and like magic, you end up with a peanut butter center between two wonderful chocolate layers.
Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Hi Reader, There was a time when “date night” meant a white tablecloth, a waiter who said absolutely to everything, and me pretending not to notice The One calculating the tip on his phone. Lately, though, I’ve fallen in love with Date Night: Home Edition. Same drama, fewer receipts. I light a candle, put on something that isn’t elastic-waist (progress), and reach for the only piece of kitchen equipment that truly separates a restaurant from a residence: a heavy pan that holds heat like a...
Hi Reader, I used to think comfort food had to come from home—my home, specifically. A place that smelled like garlic and rendered fat, where the air shimmered with anticipation and maybe a little guilt. But lately, I’ve been letting my comfort get a passport stamp.It started one night when I was too tired to make anything “proper,” so I tossed together a bowl of miso noodles from a recipe I half-remembered. The result? Instant calm. The next week it was butter chicken, then shakshuka, then a...
Hi Reader, Every March, I start pacing the kitchen like a man waiting for a miracle—or at least for something green that isn’t kale. After months of stews that could double as building insulation, I crave crispness. Snap. Something that crunches back.The first hint usually arrives as a rogue bundle of asparagus at the market. The cashier looks at me like I’ve smuggled in contraband. I cradle it home as if it’s a newborn. Then comes the ritual: trim, blanch, butter, lemon. Nothing more. I...
