Cookie

A fun take on the crowdpleasing cream cheese brownies.

Finally, PB&J for dessert. In this whimsical sweet, a peanut butter shortbread cookie is topped with a layer of blackberry jam. Some frozen shortbread dough is grated over the jam before baking for a nice finishing touch.

The zesty lemon-cream filling for the cookies can be made one day ahead. Cover and refrigerate the filling; bring it to room temperature before using.

Let's just say that finding yourself alone in a room with a plate of these cookies and a tall glass of milk would be very, very dangerous. The trifecta of chocolate, hazelnuts, and rum is irresistible. Decorating the cutouts with royal icing adds a festive touch.

Known as pepitorias, these tasty caramel-filled wafer "tacos" embellished with toasted pumpkin seeds are a regular offering at Mexican markets and sweets shops, especially in the city of Puebla, which is famous for so many confections. The wafers are traditionally brightly colored, but we chose to stick with a more seasonal white-and-gold motif. Since tinted edible wafer paper is hard to come by in the United States, we used precut white Back-Oblaten, imported from Germany, and we explain how to color them. Painting them with food coloring or water softens them enough to fold around the caramel.

For chewy texture, undercook the biscotti slightly in the second baking.

Our love of lemon grows exponentially at the sight of these delightful melt-in-your-mouth sandwich cookies. It perfumes the tiny treats, which are put together with an easy icing that zings with zest and fresh lemon juice. Rolling them in brightly colored sanding sugar makes them sparkle like vintage Christmas ornaments.

An upscale hybrid of antipodean ANZAC biscuits and chocolate digestives from Britain, these crisp cookies are positively elegant. They were an unexpected favorite in our test kitchen, with cooks and editors descending in droves when the cookies’ warm, nutty aroma filled the air.

It's a holiday party—you must have cookies. We double your pleasure by offering not one but two buttery, nutty shortbread rounds in each cookie. They sandwich tart berry jam under a drift of confectioners sugar.

Inspired by the Persian fried-turnover cookies called ghotab, food editor Shelley Wiseman used a simple dough to enfold fragrant candied orange peel and pistachios. Her method for candying the peel is very straightforward, and the results—tender and fresh-tasting—are so much better than the store-bought stuff. The flaky baked pastry, generously coated with confectioners sugar, pairs nicely with the chewy-crunchy filling within.

We dressed up this chewy classic for the holidays with a festive, to-die-for drizzle of chocolate. Oats replace part of the coconut to make this a lowfat yet still satisfying goody.

This signature Payard treat delivers a delicious dose of heart-healthy fat and antioxidants, courtesy of the nuts and cocoa.

With their simple, homespun charm, these icebox cookies are just the nibble you'll want to have on hand as you do your Christmas gift wrapping. The thinner you can slice the dough, the crisper the cookies will be, so we freeze the dough for a bit (after chilling it in the fridge) before slicing. Plus, it will be much easier to cut through the almonds and get nice, neat rounds.

Every year, I make homemade fruitcakes for friends and family. I bake the dense pound cakes studded with dried fruits months in advance, then wrap them in muslin. These cookies are similar to my fruitcakes—only they’ll take you a lot less time. For a fun presentation, the cookies are baked in bonbon-size baking cups.

When I was growing up, everyone put out bowls of toasted pecans during the holidays. To this day, the heady perfume of toasting pecans brings me back to my childhood. To capture that memory in cookie form, I made a buttery-rich, highly addictive shortbread, then decorated it with toasted pecans.

When it comes to gingerbread, I almost always find that the allspice and cloves overpower the ginger flavor. To remedy that imbalance, I created a cookie with a double dose of ginger (ground and crystallized) and a little bit of cinnamon. And although the traditional cut for gingerbread is fat, sturdy men, I thought the lightness of angel wings seemed more appropriate for these delicate cookies.

We southerners love ambrosia, a mélange of sliced juicy-sweet oranges and grated coconut. The sweet salad has been a part of southern Christmas traditions for the better part of two centuries, and I thought it would be fun to use the coconut-orange combo in a new way. I added some finely grated orange peel to classic coconut macaroons, then drizzled the cookies with bittersweet chocolate for a festive finish.

Editor's note: Lisa Loeb shared this recipe exclusively with Epicurious. To read more about Lisa and get a peek inside her kitchen, see our Celebrity Kitchen Tour videos. These are Lisa Loeb's favorite cookies, a version of Mark Bittman's "Refrigerator (Rolled) Cookies," which appeared in his seminal How to Cook Everything. She substitutes high-in-fiber whole-wheat flour for regular all-purpose flour, uses rich dark brown sugar instead of plain, and adds natural peanut butter and an extra pinch of kosher salt for a rich, nutty flavor. Before baking, she tops each cookie with a dollop of all-fruit jam, which balances out the sophisticated saltiness with the perfect hint of sweetness. If you prefer not to use jam, before baking try sprinkling cookies with good-quality sea salt, such as fleur de sel, to bring out their sweetness.