252 butter cookie recipes

Heath bar cookies loaded with frozen toffee bar chunks and nuts in a slice-and-bake butter cookie dough. Crispy edges, buttery crumb, and pockets of crunchy chocolate-covered toffee in every bite.

Low-fat cocoa brownie bars made with egg whites, nonfat yogurt, and cocoa powder instead of butter and chocolate. Fudgy brownie cookie bars dusted with powdered sugar.

Fat-free lemon poppy seed biscotti made with no added oil or butter. Crisp twice-baked Italian cookies powered by ground almonds, egg whites, and bright citrus.

Lemon cookie sandwiches with bright lemon-zest filling pressed between crisp slice-and-bake butter rounds. The tops are brushed with egg white and chopped nuts for sparkle. A classic icebox cookie for the Christmas tray.

Classic anise pizzelles made with a full ounce of anise extract, butter, and a touch of lemon. Thin, crisp Italian wafer cookies pressed in a pizzelle iron in 30 seconds each.

Hand-shaped chocolate pretzel cookies made from a cocoa butter dough, baked until set, then frosted with a simple cocoa-powdered sugar icing. A playful baking project that yields about 2 dozen.

Raisin puree fat substitute for baking, made with just raisins, water, and vanilla. Replaces butter or oil 1:1 in cookies, cakes, and brownies while keeping baked goods moist and chewy.

No-butter orange oatmeal cookies sweetened with banana, honey, and orange juice concentrate. Soft, fruity, and loaded with walnuts and golden raisins.

Traditional Chinese almond cookies with butter and shortening get an egg wash for glossy shine. Dough chills 2 hours, then slices into rounds topped with whole almonds.

Cocanes are old-fashioned butter cookies made with brown sugar, shaped into fingers, and baked in a hot oven. No liquid needed. Just six ingredients, mixed by hand, yielding 2 dozen crumbly, buttery bites.

Krumiri: Piedmontese piped butter cornmeal cookies from Casale Monferrato, Italy. Crisp, mustache-shaped shortbread with a distinct golden crunch and subtle vanilla flavor.

Almond Butter Disks: piped European-style almond cookies flavored with dark rum and lemon zest, sandwiched with raspberry-kirsch glaze. Patisserie elegance, makes 18 sandwiches.

Black and white chunk cookies loaded with semi-sweet and white chocolate chunks plus walnuts or pecans in a brown sugar butter dough. Makes 3 dozen.

Fat-free cinnamon-raisin biscotti made with egg whites. Twice-baked Italian cookies that crunch hard, dunk well, and skip butter and yolks entirely.

Fat-free chewy chocolate cookies made with cocoa powder, corn syrup, and egg whites instead of butter. Soft, fudgy, and intensely chocolatey with zero added fat.

Walnut crescent cookies rolled in powdered sugar, made with ground walnuts, butter, and egg yolks. Delicate, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread that improves with age.