Brown sugar and molasses give these cookies a deep sweetness, while ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper add spice. Using a homemade stencil, brush on a thin layer of royal icing and top with sugar or luster dust. This classic decorating technique is easier than it looks and yields beautiful results every time.

Generous amounts of cardamom, allspice, and cloves permeate these thin, crisp cookies with their spicy aroma. The cookies are rolled on a special wood-grain mat to give them their rustic texture, and can be cut out with cookie cutters in the shape of reindeer, trees, stars, or any other Christmas icons you desire.

Purchased puff pastry forms the base of these traditional crisp and buttery French cookies. A glaze of molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, and fresh ginger give these palmiers a warm holiday flavor.

Transform simple gingerbread triangles into fun Christmas trees by decorating with lemon icing and sanding sugar.

Lucinda Scala Quinn, executive food director at Martha Stewart, shares her Italian great-grandmother's recipe for molasses drops. These chewy, bite-size cookies are flavored with cinnamon, ginger, and ground cloves, and flecked with candied orange peel.

Lots of ground ginger and cinnamon flavor these traditional gingerbread cookies. The easy decoration of sanding sugar sprinkled on top of royal icing gives the cookies a wintry shimmer. You will need a seven-inch snowflake cookie cutter to make these.

These rich and thick cakelike treats are perfect for molasses lovers and are a snap to make.

These spicy, chewy bar cookies are full of candied ginger and raisins. The hermits taste even better a day or two after baking, and they will keep in an airtight container for up to five days.

Ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and molasses give these traditional gingerbread cutout cookies their distinctive flavor. For easy handling, make sure the dough is well chilled before you roll it out.

A German Christmas tradition, these little cookies are highly spiced with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and pepper. Once baked, the pfeffernussen are rolled in confectioners' sugar for a snowy finish.

Cocoa powder brings even more depth to traditional molasses-and-spice cookies. Use leaf and acorn-shaped cookie cutters as shown here, or choose Christmas shapes such as reindeer, trees, stars, and gingerbread boys and girls.

Chewy blondies get a warm holiday flavor from dried pears, candied ginger, and pistachios. This is a great cookie for mailing.

Small, cinnamon-spiced cookies are sandwiched together around a creamy filling made from confectioners' sugar and butter whipped with molasses.

Big, chewy ginger-molasses cookies get a bite from black pepper. To make the dough easier to work with, put it in the freezer for 20 minutes before rolling into balls.

Similar to biscotti but baked only once, these dense cookies are flavored with ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Because they can be stored for up to 3 days in an airtight container, they make great gifts.

Like a cross between gingerbread cake and gingerbread cookies, these chewy bars are extra moist thanks to the addition of sour cream. Cocoa powder and semisweet chocolate chips add a special twist.

Delicate, crumbly almond cookies are flavored with orange zest and rolled in candied ginger. The dough can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for up to one week, or frozen for three months.

Traditional wooden springerle molds are used to make these decorative Christmas cookies. The dough is heartily spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and white pepper.

Honey gives these ginger-and-spice cookies a lighter, more golden color than traditional molasses gingerbread cookies. This dough is perfect for creating gingerbread houses and other decorative cookie shapes.

Ground anise seeds give a warm licorice flavor to these bite-size cookies. Use a piping bag to easily create evenly sized cookies.

Crystallized ginger, lemon zest, and fresh mint add excitement to basic sugar cookies. They can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days, making them perfect for gift-giving.

Brown sugar and molasses give these cookies their chewy texture, and cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and fresh ginger add a warm, spicy flavor. Cocoa powder and lots of semisweet chocolate chunks add an appealing twist to traditional ginger cookies.

Lemon zest, crystallized ginger, and whole almonds add sophistication to these biscotti. The thin and crisp twice-baked cookies are excellent for gift-giving and mailing.

Satisfyingly chewy, these molasses, cinnamon, and nutmeg cookies are easy to make. Bake them one pan at a time to achieve a perfectly crackly top.

Everyday blondies get all dressed up for Christmas with the addition of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and molasses. Chunks of white chocolate add a sweet, creamy dimension to these gingerbread bar cookies.

Lebkuchen are traditional German Christmas cookies that have been treasured for more than 700 years. The combination of almond paste, hazelnuts, apricot jam, dates, and warm spices -- including cinnamon, ginger, mace, and cloves -- distinguish these cakelike spice cookies.

Loaf pans give these buttery almond wafer cookies their shape, and cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves add a warm holiday touch. The dough for these cookies can be made up to a month in advance and stored in the freezer until ready to bake.

Molasses-spice cookies are layered with cream cheese frosting to create a fanciful, edible Christmas tree. You will need a set of 11 fluted round cookie cutters in graduated sizes to create this cookie tree.

Cookie and Christmas ornament in one, these gingerbread cookie stars are filled with lemon-kissed caramel, which hardens into translucent candy windows. You will need seven-inch and three-inch star-shaped cookie cutters to make these stained-glass gingerbread cookies.

Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, molasses, and brown sugar flavor this dough that is rolled into thin, crisp, gingerbread cookies. This is the quintessential Christmas gingerbread cookie recipe.

Molasses, cocoa powder, and semisweet chocolate combine to make a deeply flavorful spice cookie. To ensure these cookies remain chewy and moist, be sure not to overbake them.

Lots of candied ginger characterizes these crisp, buttery cut-out cookies. A glaze of confectioners' sugar, honey, lemon juice, and lemon zest provides the perfect balance of flavors.