Dessert, Christma Recipes

Almond crescent cookies with toasted ground almonds and a tender shortbread base, finished with a chocolate drizzle or powdered sugar dusting. A Christmas cookie tin classic that holds for a week or more.

Cranberry orange bread folds whole tart cranberries and chopped nuts into a quick bread brightened with fresh orange juice and zest. A Christmas-classic loaf that gets better the day after baking.

Traditional British Christmas plum pudding: a dense steamed pudding rich with suet, dried fruit, candied orange, and brandy. Made weeks ahead to mellow, then reheated and flamed for the holiday table.

Crisp tubular cookies that can be eaten filled or filled with your favorite filling - typically a brandied whipped cream during Christmas time. A British favorite.

Buttery spiced fig thumbprint cookies, tender brown-sugar dough rolled in a crunchy flax-sugar coating and filled with jammy fig preserves. Warm cinnamon and nutmeg make them a standout on the holiday cookie tray.

Light, chewy coconut macaroons made meringue-style from whipped egg whites and grated coconut, sweetened sugar-free and scented with almond. Naturally gluten-free, and lovely topped with a glace cherry.

These cookies with a candy bar center, from Bev Bosveld of Waupun, are packed with coconut.

Chocolate nut torte: a four-layer sponge cake filled with silky cooked chocolate-buttercream frosting and topped with chopped nuts. An old-world holiday torte for special occasions.

Chocolate peppermint pinwheel cookies swirl cocoa-rich chocolate dough with crushed peppermint candy dough into a spiral slice-and-bake Christmas cookie. A holiday tin classic with bracing mint and deep chocolate.

Scandinavian-style kringle cookies made with hard-boiled egg yolks for an ultra-tender crumb, laced with cinnamon and citrus zest, then brushed with egg white and sprinkled with pistachios.

Adorable Christmas tree cakes cut from a sheet cake, frosted with green cream cheese icing, and decorated with candies, sprinkles, and little candy trunks. A fun holiday baking project with kids.

Brandy snaps are a popular delightful British Christmas cookie. Crispy golden tubes filled with a brandied whipped cream. What's not to love.

Old-fashioned Christmas fruit cake with boiled raisins, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. No eggs or butter needed, just cold water and shortening for a dense, spiced holiday cake.

The crisp, densely chocolaty cookies, with an unusually long baking time, were an annual favorite among the 20-plus recipes that Susan Couchman of Hartland remembers were made each year by her mother, Gloria Kuchler.

Holiday sugar cookies rolled and cut into shapes, dusted with colored sprinkles, and baked tender with a quiet hint of cinnamon. The classic Christmas cookie tin staple.

Fortune Christmas Cookies, tiny marble-sized dough balls baked into bite-sized holiday treats. A simple, quick-baking variation of the Mysticandy cookie dough for the Christmas tin.