Olive oil cake at its best has a crackling crust and an aromatic oil-rich middle, which, if it held any more moisture, would be pudding. This recipe is from Maialino Restaurant in New York City, where they also serve it at breakfast in muffin form, and occasionally a birthday cake, layered with mascarpone buttercream.
This cake is like your favorite banana bread, only lighter and fluffier. Penuche is a fudge-like candy made from brown sugar, butter, and milk, using no flavorings, and the frosting truly makes this cake.
This twist on a classic Italian cheesecake recipe combines zest, juice, and lemon extract, which packs a very lemony punch without too much acidity. The sour cream topping adds a great balance to the richness of the filling and looks lovely flecked with lemon zest. Biscoff cookies for the crumb crust, instead of the usual graham crackers, give a deeper, more molasses taste that suits the Meyer lemons well.
Not too sweet and not too spicy, this holiday breakfast reaps all the best rewards of monkey bread and gingerbread. It's fluffy and fragrant, and the crust is laquered with a brown sugar caramel. We recommend eating it warm, with salted butter and coffee.
The best blueberry muffins in Boston were from the now-closed Jordan Marsh department store. This recipe calls for mashing a half cup of berries and adding them to the batter, which produces a very moist muffin, one that will stay fresh longer.
You could also use the whipped feta recipe all on its own as a dip for a vegetable platter, or cheese board with crackers. I first had whipped feta at Butcher and Bee years ago and they serve it as an appetizer with warm naan.
Sweet, caramelized bananas top a moist cake that’s made with mashed, overripe bananas in the batter. Like other upside-down cakes, it features caramel made from butter and brown sugar—but unlike other cakes, the caramel in this one gets a hit of shiro (white) miso that gives it a smack of rich umami.
This is a classic Russian vinaigrette salad (Винегрет) with roasted beets, dressed in simple olive oil. This vibrant root-vegetable salad is a healthy comfort food, perfect all year round.
These thumbprint cookies, which combine the nuttiness of chestnuts with fig jam, will convince you that roasted chestnuts are worth keeping around for more than just the novelty. This recipe employs the mild, starchy nut in two ways: First, chestnuts are pulsed into a meal and used to replace some of the flour, giving the cookies an ultra-tender texture. The rest coats the cookies’ exteriors, giving them a toasty, crunchy finish.
If you love rum balls but want them to be more cookie-like, this is your recipe. The flavor here is boozy chocolate baklava without the pastry. These cookies come together without the use of an oven or stove, making them the ultimate no-bake treat.
Use whatever dried fruit you have on hand to make these glorious fruitcake cookies, a riff on the holiday classic that is as beloved as it is divisive. This recipe takes the best parts of a fruitcake—the combination of chopped, dried fruit and warming spices—but transforms it into a crispy-edged, chewy cookie. You can customize it to whatever your favorite fruit flavors are, but don’t skimp on the spices, which give the warming backbone to these sweets.
Espresso martinis are everywhere, including in these boldly flavored cookies. Garnish them with flaky smoked salt or, if you’re feeling extra, give them a dip in white chocolate and sprinkle with chopped chocolate-covered espresso beans. Like its namesake cocktail, this cookie hits just the right balance of sweet and bitter notes, meaning it’s the perfect recipe for those who don’t have the biggest sweet tooth but still crave a holiday treat.
A traditional Yule Log or buche de Noel is a wonderful centerpiece, but hard to fit into a cookie box. These Yule Log cookies look like miniature versions of the classic, right down to the chocolate swirl in the center. Break out your fanciest sprinkles to give them extra pizazz.
Latkes might not seem like the most promising holiday food to turn into cookies, but these cookies have only four ingredients, and are inspired both by latkes and coconut macaroons. We ditch the onion typically found in latkes and add in a combination of sweetened condensed milk and butter. The result is a sweet-and-salty potato chip cookie that allows you to channel latke flavor without heating up a pan of oil.
In the West Indies, Black Cake is a holiday staple, and this recipe brings the flavor of that luscious cake into cookies packed with dried fruit and burnt sugar. This recipe turns the dense, pudding-like cake into a crispy-edged cookie with a chewy pool in the center and delightful hints of nutmeg and cinnamon. The cookies are a bit lighter on booze than Black Cake usually is, but they’re just as full of flavor.
Coquito, a rum-based drink made with coconut and warming spices, is Puerto Rico’s holiday beverage. Infused with coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a hint of rum, these coquito cookies get extra flair from a heap of toasted coconut on top of the glaze.
This recipe takes traditional Hanukkah doughnuts and turns them into soft, jammy cookies adjacent to thumbprints. These pillowy sugar cookies are chewier than a snappy or crumbly shortbread cookie, thanks to brown sugar and egg yolks, and a hefty glug of olive oil makes them extra-tender, as well as calls back to sufganiyot’s fried origins. Fill them with strawberry or raspberry jam for a traditional version, or use any flavor of fruit preserve you prefer—no matter what, they’ll be delicious.
This set of recipes created by Food52 shrinks a banquet table of winter treats into a mailable cookie box. You can have the flavors of mulled wine in a two-bite snack, and a perfectly portioned Yule Log for one. These treats are ideal for sharing and dropping off at doorsteps, or making into a festive platter for a party.
This is the perfect blend of warming spices for a cup of spicy, sweet chai. The dried orange peel is not an authentic chai ingredient, but gives a little citrus kick. Brew a cup of this to combat a chilly autumn day.
This classic gingerbread cookie recipe is soft and delicious. While crisp gingerbread is suitable for a gingerbread house, for cookies a soft and chewy texture is better. This recipe delivers perfect dough for cutout shapes with all the cinnamon and spice flavor you love from gingerbread.
This Lentil Loaf is the best, healthy main dish for Thanksgiving, Christmas or memorable weeknight dinners. Enjoy with your favorite fuss-free sides for the ultimate feast.
These hefty squares of chocolate are fudgy rather than gooey, with just a little bit of chew and a shimmery, paper-thin crust on top. Brownies are all about brown ingredients, like dark chocolate, Dutch cocoa powder, and brown sugar. My recipe adds one more—brown butter. It's a simple way to layer in more flavor, with a bit of nutty richness to underscore the earthy chocolate.
This simple recipe makes restaurant-quality, golden brown on the outside, and deliciously tender on the inside breakfast potatoes. The key is all in your ingredient prep, the tools you use, and the timing of your ingredients.