Smart Cookies: 5 New Christmas Cookie Recipes

By Amy Traverso and Sarah Hearn Morrison

This is the best time of year for bakers. Not only do you get to liberally dust yourself in flour and powdered sugar, but you also can share your goods with an adoring audience. We’re all primed to eat something sweet during the shortest (but merriest) days of the year.

The following recipes range in complexity from the supremely easy lemony shortbreads and peppermint chocolate chip cookies to the slightly more involved Dubai chocolate cookies and Christmas tree sugar cookie bars. And then there are the Boston cream whoopie pies, which are a bit of a project—but who can resist two New England icons combined in one sweet treat? Bakers, on your mark, get set, bake!

5 New Christmas Cookie Recipes

Dubai Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

These Dubai Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies blend chocolate, pistachio, and kataifi for a luxurious take on the viral Dubai dessert sensation.

Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies

These Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies are the perfect blend of crisp and chewy cookie with a holiday hit of peppermint.

Easy Lemony Shortbread Cookies

The citrus in the dough and glaze of these lemony shortbread cookies really makes the flavor pop.

Boston Cream Whoopie Pies

In our Boston Cream Whoopie Pies, tender vanilla cakes are filled with silky pastry cream and finished with a glossy pour of chocolate ganache.

Christmas Tree Sugar Cookie Bars

Buttery and tender, these Christmas Tree Sugar Cookie Bars are topped with a creamy “fudge” that balances the richness of white chocolate with the tang of cream cheese.

This feature was originally published as “Smart Cookies” in the November/December 2025 issue of Yankee.

Amy Traverso

Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee and cohost of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with GBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.

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