59 holiday dessert recipes

Buttery crescent cookies with ground nuts, chilled overnight, then shaped into half moons and rolled hot in powdered sugar. A traditional Christmas cookie with crumbly shortbread texture.

Tasty Halloween treats made into the shape of mice. Very chocolaty but not too sweet.

Light rum balls roll up in 5 minutes from ground walnuts, vanilla wafer crumbs, honey, and rum. No-bake holiday cookies that stash in a tin for over a month and only get better with age.

Instead of a rich butter cookies, make some macaroon made of egg whites, coconut, pecans and chocolate. They are so chocolaty and delicious, a little bit crunchy at the inside and slightly chewy on the outside. Perfect sweet treats at holidays.

A sweet coconut rice cake made with glutinous rice flour, coconut milk, and shredded coconut. This traditional Chinese New Year treat bakes up sticky, chewy, and subtly sweet.

Layered chocolate pound cake soaked in kirsch, topped with sour cherries, rich homemade chocolate custard, and clouds of whipped cream. A showpiece trifle for 18.

Molded cheese treats made by melting cheddar in the microwave and setting it in candy molds or lollipops. A one-ingredient party trick for kids' lunchboxes and holiday platters.

Rugelach roll flaky cream cheese dough around apricot preserves, cinnamon-brown-sugar, walnuts, and raisins into bite-sized crescents. A classic Jewish bakery cookie for Hanukkah and Christmas alike.

Elegant shortbread-style cookies with ground toasted pecans and a splash of dry sherry. Pressed with decorative designs and ripened overnight for the best texture. Makes 90 cookies.

Lemon oatmeal cookies bright with lemon juice, zest, and extract, made lighter with oil and egg whites and given extra crunch from crisp rice cereal. A crisp, citrusy twist on the classic oatmeal cookie.

Halloween spiderweb cookies decorate sugar cookies with white flooded icing and black piped concentric circles, then drag a toothpick to create perfect web patterns. Show-stopping party cookies for kids and adults.

Holiday master butter cookie dough combines flour, cornstarch, and creamed butter into a tender, rollable base for cut-outs, Linzers, thumbprints, and pinwheels. Chills up to 3 days or freezes up to 6 months.

Cream cheese snowflake cookies with lemon zest, topped with powdered sugar icing and edible glitter. Delicate, buttery Christmas cutout cookies that sparkle.

in a food processor combine 1 pack of oreos, crush until fine. add 1 8 oc package of cream cheese. blend together. make into balls the size of a walnut. dip into powdered sugar or white chocolate

Layered pumpkin walnut pie hides a buttery brown-sugar walnut praline beneath a creamy, cream-cheese-rich pumpkin custard in a shortbread crust, crowned with baked pastry leaves. A Thanksgiving showpiece.

Classic Cherries Jubilee with sweet Bing cherries simmered in citrus-scented syrup, flambéed with cognac, and ladled over vanilla ice cream. Pure tableside drama in 25 minutes.