5 favorite holiday cookie recipes

I’m sure you’ve seen the wonderful — and wonderfully easy — bar cookies that Times cooking columnist Ben Mims developed for this year’s holiday season. They are all beautiful and delicious and promise to please your cookie crowd. Still, for some, the ritual of making and decorating individual cookies is an essential component of the holiday season.

If you are all about classic sugar cookies, iced and decorated with your own touch of holiday whimsy, this recipe is for you. It was one of the 10 favorites selected from more than 250 entries in the L.A. Times 2013 Holiday Cookie Bake-Off.

From a time and efficiency standpoint, these “dream” cookies fall somewhere between the convenience of bar cookies and the intricate, multistep process of rolling dough, cutting out individual cookies, baking, icing and decorating them. A cookie scoop makes quick work of portioning the individual cookies, and different-sized sprinkles or dragées allow for simple decorating with an elegant-looking result.

Another L.A. Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off finalist (2017), these house-shaped cookies allow for detailed decorating and omit the engineering feats often required for complex, multilevel, 3-D gingerbread houses. And you can have just one or two bites of gingerbread without bringing down the entire house.

Chewy, spicy and adorned by the crackles that result from baking, these molasses cookies are a simple, elegant holiday treat.

They look like basic chocolate crinkle cookies dusted with confectioner’s sugar, but one bite — even just a whiff — immediately tells you that this is not quite what it seems. Almond paste, cocoa powder and anise-y licorice combine for a unique flavor with a satisfying chew that will wow chocolate and licorice lovers alike.