12 Recipes for Your Holiday Menu From Our December 2020 Issue

Chocolate-Orange Sandwich Cookies

Feast your eyes (and then your stomach) on our homage to the much-loved Milano cookie. This version has orange zest folded into the cookie and a tender, rather than crisp, texture. (Think madeleine meets soft sugar cookie.) The two-ingredient chocolate ganache sandwiched between the cookies is so rich and luscious that you'll want to use it on all your desserts.

Almond Sugar Cookies and Mascarpone-Cocoa Cutouts

Transform cookie cutters in simple shapes—diamonds, triangles, stars, and circles—into a jolly array of Santa cookies. Use smooth Royal Icing for flooding and detail work, then add beards and poms with Buttercream Frosting.

Latte Spritz Cookies

Break out your cookie press for a new twist on a spritz cookie. This buzzy version adds coffee powder to the dough and the creamy icing for a double dose of coffee flavor. Serve the cookies with a cup of coffee for a happy start to your day or as the perfect ending to dinner. Heck, they sound like a good midday snack pairing for when we hit an afternoon slump too. Try it any time.

Limoncello Cheesecake Bars

These spirited cheesecake bars give you a head start on hosting duties: They can be made and refrigerated up to three days ahead. We put limoncello in the name for good reason. There's not merely a splash of limoncello in the filling; there's a generous ½ cup, so the flavor comes through in each bite.

Raspberry Marble Shortbread Cookies

Let us introduce you to the magic of freeze-dried raspberries. They're the secret to coloring and flavoring the pink dough in these marbled shortbread cookies. The marbled effect is so pretty there's no need for further decoration.

Buy It: Good & Gather Freeze-Dried Raspberries ($5, Target)

Peppermint-Chocolate Brookies

If you're a fan of food mash-ups, these two-in-one fusion bars are for you. Mounds of peppermint sugar cookie dough are baked into a rich brownie batter to create "brookies," the brownie-cookie combo you didn't know you needed.

Triple-Ginger Cookies

Cloves and ginger add a hint of heat to these cookies. We list a range of both so you can cater to your taste. Use the smaller amount for a more subtle flavor, or stir in the full amount for a bit of kick.

Citrus Shimmer Cocktail

Tangerine juice and limoncello give this cocktail its pucker; a pour of bubbly Prosecco makes it glimmer. With a thick citrus twist as a garnish, this drink recipe is ready to party.

Gingerbread Cinnamon Rolls

There's something about a fluffy cinnamon roll that signals big-time comfort. So we took our best cinnamon roll recipe—its secret ingredient is a scoop of mashed potatoes—and decked it out for the holidays. The gingerbread-inspired filling includes ginger and cloves in addition to the usual cinnamon.

Crispy Latkes

"My grandmother makes her latkes with leavening; hers are more fluffy," says Seri Kertzner of the event planning company Little Miss Party. "But I like mine really thin and crispy. If you don't celebrate Hanukkah, these make a great side dish for breakfast or brunch," Kertzner says. Any time is a great time for crispy potatoes if you ask us.

Jerk Chicken

For Riche Holmes Grant, the designer and the creator behind the web series The Riche Life, December is all about holidays. The blogger celebrates both Christmas and Kwanzaa with her family. "Kwanzaa is an African American cultural holiday," Grant says. The weeklong holiday starts December 26 and usually culminates in a celebratory dinner.

Grant puts a Caribbean spin on the menu with her Jerk Chicken which takes on maximum flavor as it marinates overnight in a mixture of chiles, brown sugar, and spices.

Buttermilk Skillet Corn Bread

Delicious on its own, Grant's corn bread recipe only gets better with her whipped honey butter and hot pepper jelly. When she makes the recipe, Grant makes enough pepper jelly to serve with the corn bread and also give some jars as holiday gifts. Who would say no to that food gift?