402 sugar cookie recipes

Slice-and-bake butterscotch cookies with brown sugar, cinnamon, and a make-ahead frozen dough. Press into loaf pans, freeze, then slice thin and bake whenever the craving hits.

Pfefferneusse are traditional German pepper cookies with molasses, star anise, cinnamon, allspice, and black pepper, rolled in powdered sugar. This old-world recipe mellows for weeks in stoneware for the best flavor.

Traditional Tuscan cavallucci spice cookies built from a hot sugar syrup kneaded with walnuts, candied orange peel, and warm spices like clove, anise, and cinnamon. Chewy, perfumed, and unmistakably medieval.

Clinton's Chips are oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with old-fashioned oats, two sugars, and a generous load of semisweet chocolate chips. Crispy-edged, chewy-centered, and ready in 30 minutes.

Almond rolls are buttery shortbread logs made with just four ingredients: butter, sugar, ground almonds, and flour. The kind of cookie tin staple that goes with afternoon tea or coffee.

Esther's Purses: folded, filled cookies with a tender orange juice dough, stuffed with date-orange or nut filling, baked, then rolled warm in powdered sugar. A heritage Purim-style treat.

Layer cookies with a buttery shortbread base topped with a crisp brown sugar meringue and chopped nuts. The egg yolks go in the bottom layer, the whites become the chewy topping.

Mint Surprise Cookies hide a melty chocolate mint wafer inside soft brown-sugar dough, each one crowned with a toasted walnut. Chill the dough so it seals the surprise neatly before baking.

Crunchy drop cookies packed with oatmeal, flaked coconut, and corn flakes in a buttery brown sugar base. They spread thin and crisp up with golden, lacy edges in just 12 minutes.

Vermont maple cinnamon swirl cookies: a flaky butter-and-maple pastry rolled around brown sugar cinnamon filling, then sliced and baked. Crisp edges, tender centers, and a real maple glaze on top.

Twice-baked Jewish biscotti loaded with crunchy almonds, mixed dried fruit, and a cinnamon-sugar crust. Crisp edges meet tender centers in this traditional cookie perfect for dunking in coffee or tea.

Buttery Italian-style shortbread cookies made with powdered sugar, vanilla, and three-quarters of a pound of real butter. Chill the dough, roll it out, cut your favorite shapes, and bake until golden.

Praline macaroons from Mississippi: chewy meringue cookies built on whipped egg whites, brown sugar, and toasted pecans, each one crowned with a whole pecan half. Crisp shell, soft center, pure Southern bakery counter.

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.

Spells & Bells are festive Christmas cookies cut into holiday shapes and deep fried until golden and puffed, then served plain, sugared or glazed. A cream-rich fried dough that's crisp outside and tender within.

Roll-and-cut almond cookies with toasted sliced almonds folded into a buttery dough and finished with a dusting of powdered sugar. Crisp edges, tender centers, and a double hit of vanilla and almond extract.