Recipe Sifter

A spicy cookie with a mealy, rather unusual texture.

Homemade Purim ravioli with a tender spinach and chicken filling, sealed between paper-thin sheets of pasta and boiled, then served with marinara or meat sauce. An Italian-Jewish holiday labor of love.

Chilled raspberry bisque, a cold fruit soup made with fresh raspberries stirred into a butter-flour cream sauce with lemon juice. Elegant and refreshing.

Raspberry gems are delicate sandwich cookies with a sour cream pastry dough, raspberry jam filling, dipped in semi-sweet chocolate and sprinkled with almonds. A gorgeous holiday cookie tin addition.

Refrigerator cookies pack chopped dates, shredded coconut, and walnuts into a buttery slice-and-bake log rolled in extra nuts. Make-ahead icebox cookies for holiday baking or anytime.

Sesame seed cookies are an Italian-American holiday classic with a tender shortbread-like dough rolled in toasted sesame seeds before baking. Massive batch (240 cookies) for cookie tins.

Thin, lacy sesame wafers with nutty toasted sesame seeds and brown sugar. These crisp, buttery cookies spread into golden wafers as they bake, making 4 dozen irresistible treats.

Quick pan-fried trout with toasted almonds, lemon, and parsley. Simple flour dredge and clarified butter create golden, flaky fish in 20 minutes for two.

Liver dumplings (leberknödel) blend scraped beef liver with lard, breadcrumbs, egg, and parsley, then poach in clear broth. Single-serving Austrian-German soup garnish.

Classic snickerdoodles rolled in cinnamon sugar and baked until soft-centered with a chewy edge. Cream of tartar gives the signature tang and crackled top. Pantry-staple cookie recipe.

Classic snickerdoodle cookies: tender soft cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar, with the signature cream of tartar tang. Yields five dozen for the cookie tin.

Old-fashioned drop cookies with dark molasses, chopped tart apples, and warm spices like cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Soft, chewy, and they make 60 cookies from one batch.

Sour cream sugar cookies are soft, puffy, and rolled in sugar before flattening and baking. The sour cream keeps these tender for days with a slight tang that balances the sweetness.

Sour cream sugar cakes, soft tender drop cookies made with sour cream and half butter, half shortening. Lightly sugared tops, cake-like crumb, a forgotten heartland classic.

Old-fashioned spicy date cookies with oats, chopped nuts, cinnamon, and allspice. Chewy drop cookies that spread thin and crisp at the edges. Ready in 30 minutes.

Cream cheese rugelach rolled with cinnamon-spiced walnuts. The flaky three-ingredient dough bakes into tender, buttery crescents in under 15 minutes.