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It isn’t too early to start thinking about holiday cookies. This week kicked off the return of the Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off, a tradition that began here 15 years ago. The Times is reviving the cookie fest for this season, and recipe submissions are being accepted now until Monday, Oct. 13.
In the last few days, we’ve already received many cookie recipes, and all of the talk of brown butter, chocolate chips, candied oranges, molasses, macadamia nuts, cinnamon, ginger, graham cracker crumbs, cocoa powder, cream cheese and raspberry jam might inspire anyone to want to start rolling out dough to bake — even if it’s 83 degrees in L.A. and the middle of September (though a colleague recently pointed out that we’re less than a hundred days from Christmas).
The most recent Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off was back in 2017. “This is the season to have fun in the kitchen,” said former L.A. Times Test Kitchen director Noelle Carter at the time, passing along memories and traditions “while we stock up on festive cookies and family favorites to share with those closest to us.”
In the years since then (bake-off or no bake-off), the Food section has published dozens more holiday cookies. Among our favorites: Salted Butterscotch Thumbprints, Peppermint Bark Brownies, Marie and Emil Mor’s Pignoli, Chess Bars With Raspberry-Lime Jam, and Rose, Cardamom And Pistachio Snowballs.
If you’d like to share your most-loved holiday cookie recipe, please fill out this easy form. Submit your recipe, tell us a bit about your cookie, and include a photo if you happen to have one.
Here’s a selection of cookie recipes from past Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off winners and some additional all-time faves.
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Salted Butterscotch Thumbprints
The inspiration for these cookies might be familiar to any Angeleno who’s had Nancy Silverton’s now-iconic salted butterscotch budino, says former Times cooking columnist Ben Mims. Silverton’s pudding, with its drizzle of caramel sauce and sprinkling of flaky sea salt, is everything you want in a dessert. Mims put that pudding into the small divots of thumbprint cookies. Using all dark brown sugar in the dough makes it easy to form into balls that hold their shape and gives the cookies a molasses-like flavor and chewy texture. The butterscotch sauce is spiked with whiskey, which helps it set into a perfectly smooth, firm filling. The final sprinkle of flaky sea salt is essential. The gold dragées are optional.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes plus cooling time. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen.
(Leslie Grow / For The Times)
Rose, Cardamom and Pistachio Snowballs
Beth Corman Lee’s rose, cardamom and pistachio snowballs were one of the five favorite cookie recipes in the Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off in 2016. The snowballs were a cookie her mother-in-law used to make, but when she passed away, she left no recipe. Lee experimented to come up with the cookie her husband remembered from his childhood, then added spices and nuts inspired by the Middle Eastern cookies called ghraybeh. “These cookies represent our family’s past, our present,” said Lee, “and hopefully a long future appreciating the diversity of our heritage and the new flavor memories we will make for generations to come.”
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 40 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles)
Mexican Chocolate Christmas Cookies
Deborah Pappalau’s Mexican chocolate Christmas cookies are inspired by the cinnamon-sugar dusted churros and rich Mexican hot chocolate that represent the holidays for her family. The buttery cookies are dusted with cinnamon sugar, each one filled with rich Mexican chocolate. “My husband and kids think these cookies taste like Christmas,” Pappalau said.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour. Makes about 16.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles)
Peppermint Bark Brownies
Former L.A. Times cooking editor Genevieve Ko jigsawed peppermint bark over just-baked brownies — a fudgy base topped with a ganache-like topping — then speckled them with crackly minty candy bits. The brownie’s residual heat melts the dark chocolate bottom of the bark, fusing the two together as they cool. Ko used Costco’s big box of store-brand peppermint bark, noting that it works best here because it’s quite thin. Thicker options from other shops work too, but might pop off the brownie during slicing or eating.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 40 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.
(Evan Sung / For The Times)
White Chocolate Turtle Cookies
These white chocolate turtle cookies from Nicole Cleghorn, a reader from North Dakota, were chosen among 10 favorites in the 2011 Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off. A friend’s husband who travels a lot on business donated enough airline miles to get her a free ticket to Los Angeles to visit The Times’ Test Kitchen. Five other friends chipped in enough cash for a couple of nights in a hotel. “Amazing what great cookies — and the hands of many friends — can do.”
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles)
Marie and Emil Mor’s Pignoli
Reporter Stephanie Breijo interviewed members of L.A.’s Garibaldina Society for this pignoli recipe. “Quite possibly the MVP of the Italian bakery, pignoli are the nutty, soft, textured cookies found in any Italian cookie spread worth its salt,” she wrote. “Named for their topping of a scattering of pine nuts, Sicilian pignoli — also referred to as amaretti con pignoli — involve almond flour or marzipan that creates a chewy, luscious center while a thin, crackly outer layer provides structure. This recipe hails from two late, former members and officers of the Garibaldina Society: Two-time president Emil Mor and his wife, secretary Marie Mor. Their cookies are simple to make and so delicious — and best enjoyed fresh, within one or two days of baking.”
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen.
(Silvia Razgova/Silvia Razgova)
Oat and Hazelnut Chess Bars with Raspberry-Lime Jam
Former L.A. Times cooking columnist Ben Mims is a holiday cookie baker extraordinaire. He said these chess bars are a Southern treat typically made with a cake base topped with a very sweet, rich cream cheese filling. “I heavily reduce the sugar and replace the flour-based cake bottom with an oat dough cut with fragrant hazelnut and almond flours. You can also think of these as a more relaxed version of linzer cookies.” The topping here is a fruity, tangy jam of raspberry and lime.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.
(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)
Suzie’s Sugar Cookies
These cookies were among the top 10 favorites of the more than 250 submissions to the L.A. Times 2013 Holiday Cookie Bake-Off. “My mother made these cookies only once a year for Christmas, and somehow, only on Christmas Eve, after she had sent us to bed,” said Sheri Miyamoto. “They magically appeared in the morning. As time went on and it got to be too much for her, I stepped up and made them for the family.”
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.
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