‘Deck the Halls’ Cinnamon Cookies With Caramel

Baking spices, mini marshmallows, pecans and caramel — it’s a combination that Shant Nazarian came up with after several attempts to make a cookie that included some of his family’s favorite flavors, without falling back on chocolate chips. He and his wife, Brittany Nazarian, had plenty of middle-of-the-night time on their hands when their son was born, which Shant took advantage of to perfect his “Deck the Halls” cinnamon cookie.

Besides the pairing of sticky-chewy-melty marshmallows and toasty-crunchy-nutty pecans, it’s the pool of caramel sauce underneath each ball of dough, which turns into a crackly-buttery-sugary edge of lace once baked, that distinguishes Shant’s cookie. “It took some trial and error,” he says, “but the end result is delicious.”

Shant recommends making a caramel sauce lighter in color because it will continue to cook with the cookies in the oven. And even though you’re using just a dollop underneath each cookie, it does spread out, “so people shouldn’t be alarmed when that happens,” he says. It’s important to keep the cookies well-spaced from one another — six per baking sheet.

Note: When transferring the cookies to a wire rack to cool, carefully lift them with the parchment paper that lines your baking sheet.