15 Classic Christmas Cookie Recipes from the Yankee Archives
Add some sweetness to your holiday season with these 15 classic Christmas cookie recipes from the Yankee archives.
By Aimee Tucker|Dec 07 2021|
15 Classic Christmas Cookies From the Yankee Archives
Photo Credit: Michael PiazzaHere at Yankee, we’ve been making and sharing classic Christmas cookie recipes since 1935. To help celebrate the season, we’ve put together a list of our favorite bar, cutout, ball, sandwich, and drop cookies from the Yankee archives. We hope they’ll help make your holiday season extra sweet!
15 Classic Christmas Cookie Recipes From the Yankee Archives
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
GINGERBREAD PUFFS
We’ve updated these 1930s gingerbread puffs so they have a soft, moist texture, with the added pleasure of making good use of leftover mashed potatoes.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
GREEK NUT CRESCENTS (Kourabiedes)
Essentially shortbread with nuts, Greek Nut Crescents (kourabiedes) are similar to Russian tea cakes and Mexican wedding cookies. You can make them with any nuts you like: hazelnuts, pecans, almonds, or walnuts.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
SPLIT-SECOND JAM COOKIES
These jam cookies take less than 20 minutes to put together and another 20 minutes to bake. They’re tender and buttery, with great contrast from the tart jam.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
LEMON-GLAZED CARAWAY COOKIES
This recipe takes us back to the very beginning of American cooking. In fact, its roots are in the first cookbook ever published here, a 1796 work called American Cookery, printed in Hartford, Connecticut, by Hudson & Goodwin. The cookies were delicious but a little plain, so we made some adjustments, including a lemon glaze. Now they’re perfect: fragrant, buttery, and just sweet enough.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
OLD-FASHIONED SUGAR COOKIES
These old-fashioned sugar cookies are based on a 1939 recipe. Top with icing and sprinkles for a colorful (and kid-friendly) treat.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
FAVORITE CRISPY COOKIES
Been hunting for a delicious, super-crispy cookie recipe? With these nutty brown-sugar crispy cookies, the search is over!
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
HONEYMOON COOKIES
In 1960, a reader sent us this recipe for her grandmother’s soft sugar cookies, filled with minced apples, nuts, spices, and raisins (we substituted dried cranberries). They’re like tiny apple pies. Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients; these honeymoon cookies are very simple to make.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
POTATO-CHIP COOKIES
Intrigued by their period authenticity (the ’70s are, after all, when the term “junk food” was coined), we gave these potato-chip cookies a try and found that they were not only delicious but fun to serve with a “guess what’s in them?” quiz. They’re worth making at least once, both for their flavor and for the surprise factor.
Photo Credit : Heath Robbins
ICED CRANBERRY SPRITZ COOKIES
Buttery and sweet, these cranberry spritz cookies get a tangy kick from the addition of dried cranberries, which also gives them a moist texture. Lightly dipped in a simple glaze, they’re pretty enough for gifting.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
TREASURE-CHEST BARS
Here’s a fruitcake variation that people actually love: tender frosted bars studded with dried fruit, nuts, and chocolate (that’s the “treasure”). Treasure-chest bars were popular in the ’60s and ’70s, and we published this version of the recipe in November 1978.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
NO-BAKE CHOCOLATE RUM BALLS
Since 1971, the 40 or so women of the now-famous Wellesley Cookie Exchange have gathered each December to swap dozens of Christmas cookies and recipes. In 1986, we published The Wellesley Cookie Exchange Cookbook, compiled and edited by Susan Peery, and the book has become a classic. One bite of these delicious no-bake chocolate rum balls will make you understand why.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
SEMI-RETRO CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Remember the 1990s obsession with white chocolate? You’ll find both white and bittersweet chocolate in these classic chunky chocolate chip cookies, and the combination is lovely.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
CHOCOLATE-HAZELNUT TARTLETS
A hazelnut shortbread forms the base of these little gourmet tartlets, which are filled with raspberries and chocolate ganache.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
CHOCOLATE-PEPPERMINT SANDWICH COOKIES
These delicious Chocolate-Peppermint Sandwich Cookies are a nod to “gourmetified” junk-food classics. In fine bakeries around New England, we now see tongue-in-cheek artisanal interpretations of Oreos, whoopie pies, and Pop-Tarts. Here, we took the Oreo meme a step further, adding crushed candy canes for a little holiday pizzazz.
Photo Credit : Michael Piazza
GLUTEN-FREE CORNMEAL THUMBPRINT COOKIES
A startling number of people these days are reporting gluten sensitivities, and gluten-free baking has become an important subspecialty for recipe developers. We love the flavor and texture of these tender gluten-free cornmeal-based cookies, and the way the raspberry flavor complements the corn.
Which classic Christmas cookie recipes are your favorites?
This post was first published in 2016 and has been updated.
SEE MORE:
Chocolate Peppermint Whoopie Pies
Best Holiday Party Appetizers
Favorite Cranberry Recipes
years ago you published a recipe for raspberry shortbread cookies from the Viking Hotel in Newport Ri I have been trying to find it the dough was grated first before cooking
Hi MaryAnn. Can you provide a bit more information? Was the recipe from an issue of Yankee Magazine? A decade would be helpful if so. Or did it appear in a magazine supplement or perhaps a Yankee cookbook? I’ll do my best to track it down if I can get a little more info from you. Thanks!
I clicked on the recipe category listed below. I selected some recipes and tried to access them. Some of them I could access and some of them I could not. They came up as access denied.
Hi Marge. Thanks for letting us know! We’ve corrected the errors and you should now be able to view every recipe. Thanks!
I have lost my recipe for the pumpkin cookies that you printed before Thanksgiving. Is there any way I can get it? Thanks
Holiday Greetings,
Thinking back to a recipe from an issue of Yankee Magazine where cookies, I believe they were Scandinavan, and were shaped like fish. I loved the history they were quite unique. If you have information I would love to revisit the story and make the cookies again.
Warm wishes,
Lisa
Hello Lisa. We’d love to try and track down the recipe for you. Can you give a bit more information? What year (or even decade) do you think it was? Was there a memorable ingredient in the cookies? Were they like shortbread or gingerbread or were they chocolate? Our recipe archive is a bit cumbersome so any identifying details are enormously helpful. Thanks!
For Lisa, Several years ago there was a ginger cookie in Yankee Magazine called Valentine’s Day Cookies. The cookies in the illustration were fish shaped because the little girl particularly liked that shape. There doesn’t seem to be any reference to Scandinavia. I like the Yankee recipies so much that I cut the ones I want to keep and paste them in a notebook. Haven’t lost one yet.
Years ago, there was a recipe with something like walnut ball sandwiched with a chocolate filling. I kept that magazine for years (other great cookie recipes in it too), but seemed to have lost it in a move. I would love to have that recipe again!
That is called walnut butter ball we call them hamburger cookies!
Gee, I wish I could still bake. Hands are too bad to handle them now.
Thanks for sharing your recipes. I’m sharing with my Grand daughters.
I’d love ! To find a recipe from several years back ( not more than 10) for a ginger cutout cookie that was crispy, and the illustration was a pug cutout ~ can’t find it anywhere ???? help!
I meant pig cutout
I have lost my copy of Yankee Magazine that had an old-fashioned date-filled cookie recipe. It was probably from the 1990’s, though I suspect the recipe was much older. I had my fingers crossed that it would be one of the favorites. I remember the date filling had lemon (juice? zest?) in it, which made it taste wonderful.
Where can I get the recipes for these cookies?
Hi Margaret! If you click on the title of the name of the cookie it will take you to a new page with that cookie’s recipe. Happy baking!
I’d love to see these recipes in a cookie booklet !
By mistake I deleted the meringue cookie you published this week in another article. Can you reissue?
Hi there! This might be the recipe you’re looking for: https://newengland.com/today/food/forgotten-cookies/ Happy baking!
Please help me find the sugar cookie from the Mount Washington Hotel chef, probably between 1998-2007, PLEASE
ALL of these recipes sound delicious-how to choose a few to bake for gifts?! Thank you , YANKEE for publishing these! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Why don’t you show the recipe for the sour cream sugar cookies (trees with green frosting) that are pictured?
Hi Rhonda. If you’re coming from the promo in the magazine, the sour cream sugar cookie trees recipe was linked in the photo caption and can be found in the “How to Host a Cookie Swap” story. But I will also share it here: https://newengland.com/today/food/desserts/cookies-bars/sour-cream-sugar-cookie-trees/
Thanks for the recipes
I’m looking for 2 recipes I made with my mom when I was a kid in the ’60’s… First was a thumbprint cookie that we rolled in lightly beaten egg whites, then into shredded coconut and thumb prints were made midway through the baking process… we filled some of them with jam, but most were filled with a Hershey’s Kiss, –OR– half of Maraschino red or green cherries.
My mom was Slavic and I remember my dad typed her recipes on 3×5″ file cards, and the 2nd recipe was “Russian Rocks” and they reminded me most of Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, but those usually use pecans. I honestly don’t remember what was inside, but being poor, it must have been minimal–I cannot see her buying both pecans AND walnuts and I’m ruling out dates. She probably used walnuts, they were cheaper than pecans.
Any help with these two would be appreciated!
Looking for a lost cookie recipe made with cottage cheese, or cream cheese, with cinnamon type filling, and rolled into crescents. Any help would be appreciated.