Cookie

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 1 1/2 hr

Sardinia, Italy Diamond-shaped papassinas are especially good with a cup of coffee. The flavor of these cookies gets even better after a few days.

A bowl of fresh fruit and some mixed nuts would be very nice go-withs here.

These look very pretty when presented on a plate of sliced strawberries.

Lemon marmalade provides the instant filling for these buttery treats.

A sophisticated cookie for sesame lovers.

For another food editor 'tis the season to make shortbread. She adapted the following recipe from Richard Sax's Cookie Lover's Cookie Book. These cookies are out of this world.

This is the first published recipe for Girl Scout cookies. It was printed in July, 1922.

"Biscotti have become very popular recently, but my mother-in-law, Helen, has been baking them for years," says Janet Mercuri of North Royalton Ohio. "Now that I've started using her recipe, friends tell me that my biscotti taste just like their grandmothers' —and I'm not even Italian." These have a subtle anise flavor and would be nice with a caffè latte.

The secret to these macaroons' texture is the Italian meringue, composed of egg whites and a boiling sugar syrup. When baking these for Passover, dust the sheets with matzo cake meal; you can use flour at other times.

You might be tempted to bake 2 sheets of bars at a time in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Don't give in to this urge—they must go in the middle of the oven to cook through and brown evenly.

Cocoa brownies have the softest center and chewiest candylike top "crust" of all because all of the fat in the recipe (except for a small amount of cocoa butter in the cocoa) is butter, and all of the sugar is granulated sugar rather than the finely milled sugar used in chocolate. Use the best cocoa you know for these fabulous brownies.

As energizing as an energy bar, with a much simpler ingredient list.

A simple sandwich cookie made with black tea, fresh ginger, and ground cardamom that tastes just like a cup of milky chai.

These pinwheel-style swirls pair classic sugar cookie dough with cranberry and red wine jam. They’re equally at home on a cheese plate and served as dessert.

A riff on the New York classic black-and-white cookie, featuring refreshing peppermint extract and a sprinkle of festive crushed candy canes.