“These taste like a thumbprint cookie but require even less effort to make,” food editor Shilpa Uskokovic says. Here you don’t need to individually roll out cookies and dab them with jam post-bake. Rather, the tender dough is formed into a long log streaked with jam, baked, then cut into diagonal strips—the optimal shape for dunking into milky tea.
You’ll need: your favorite store-bought jam, a hand or stand mixer, and a strong affinity for life hacks.
Baklava Cookies
Coming together in an hour, “this is a lazy showstopper,” test kitchen coordinator Inés Anguiano says. These may look like humble sugar cookies, but one bite reveals a sweet surprise: a chewy, fragrant baklava-like center. It’s packed with enough pistachios, honey, and warming spices to convince you to stuff all future sugar cookies.
You’ll need: crushed rose petals for the finishing touch and an expert poker face.
Chile-Cheese Shortbread
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” associate food editor Rachel Gurjar says. Or, you know, a cookie by its ingredients. These spicy-salty shortbread rounds are the perfect foil to a table crowded with sweets—just what you need to reset your palate mid-swap. Sharp cheddar is the star of these savory cookies, bringing a welcome hit of umami. And ringed by a tinsel red mix of earthy Aleppo-style pepper and raw sugar, they’re festive too.
You’ll need: a hunk of cheddar, some plastic wrap for forming your log of dough, and an open mind.
Tiramisu Snowball Cookies
“This is a crowd-pleaser cookie, easy to make and easy to love,” deputy food editor Hana Asbrink says. These cocoa-dusted bites marry the richness of the coffee in tiramisu with the buttery, crumbly texture of a classic snowball—a one-bowl recipe with plenty of flair.
You’ll need: a fine-mesh sieve for dusting the cookies and an apron—unless you want to look like a snowball cookie.
Pro Tips
Digital production assistant Li Goldstein polled our food editors for their sweetest tips for throwing a legendary cookie swap. Listen up:
Line your table with parchment paper. That way guests can write the names of their cookies directly on the table, no sticky notes required. Bonus: Cleanup is a breezy crumple-and-toss affair.
Note any allergens. Another benefit of the parchment-as-tablecloth method: Everyone can (and very much should) jot down any ingredients worth calling out, like nuts or dairy.
Don’t forget the food. One cannot survive on sugar alone! If you want the party to last, you need some real food. Make sure to provide apps—like a cheese ball, perhaps?—for easy noshing.
Buy a set of bakery boxes. Leftover cookies are the best party favors. Cardboard bakery boxes, which are relatively cheap and easy to find online or at craft or baking supply stores, are a pretty and practical option.
Delegate beverage duty. All that sugar makes a person thirsty. Task any partygoers who aren’t into baking with bringing festive drinks, like hot cocoa, tea, wine, or a fun cocktail.
Make recipes easy to access. Create a shared document or folder with all of the recipes, or print them out ahead of time so that people can recreate any of the cookies that they loved later.
Paper Dessert Boxes with Window
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