Martha's All-Time Favorite Christmas Cookies

Get out your measuring cups, mixing bowls, cookie cutters, and baking trays because you'll want to make all of these Christmas cookies—they're Martha's favorites! For more holiday cookie recipes and packaging ideas, download our complete guide!

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John Dolan

Holiday baking with Martha means cookie recipes that are both traditional and surprising. Of course, at the top of Martha's list are sugar cookies, and her buttery recipe is the standard bearer for those classics. Once you've made the dough, you can cut it into any shape you wish, from partridges-in-a-pear-trees, to snowmen, to reindeer, to Santas. Martha's go-to for decorating is royal icing, which goes on smoothly and then dries wherever you place it, ensuring your cookies will look fantastic (and taste delicious, too).

Any collection of favorite Christmas cookies would be remiss if it didn't include gingerbread. Here, we've taken it one step further and actually included two different varieties as part of this round-up. First, there are Martha's Gingerbread Snowflakes, which she pipes with royal icing and sprinkles with fine sanding sugar to create a frosty effect. Then there are her Chewy Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies, deeply flavored with fresh ginger (instead of the usual powdered spice) and a double-dose of chocolate, thanks to both semisweet chocolate and cocoa powder.

There are four wonderfully nutty cookies on Martha's list: Giant Pistachio Wreath Cookies; Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies, filled with apricot or raspberry jam and melted chocolate; Noel Nut Balls bursting with pecans and coated in confectioners' sugar (Martha's take on the more well-known Mexican Wedding Cakes and Russian Tea Cakes, the latter are made with almonds not pecans); and Shaped Icebox Cookies, which Martha likes to make with Sicilian pistachios for their color and the way contrast with dried apricots, cranberries, and other bright dried fruits.

Old-Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies and Brown-Butter Cookies round out Martha's assembly, and while lemon and brown butter may not be conventional holiday flavors, there's no arguing that they're lovely—as it turns out, both lemon desserts and brown butter are absolute favorites for Martha. And perhaps just the unexpected touch your platter of Christmas cookies needs.

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Sugar Cookies

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These buttery cookies are the ultimate for making cutout cookies in all kinds of shapes (from partridge-in-a-pear-tree to snowman to reindeer to Santa Claus cookies, and so many more). Martha always uses royal icing for decorating.

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Gingerbread Snowflakes

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Because it just isn't Christmas without gingerbread! Martha likes to make different sizes of snowflakes—the ones pictured here are larger, but she makes smaller cookies as well. She pipes her cookies with royal icing and sprinkles them with fine sanding sugar.

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Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies

Romulo Yanes

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Crisp, buttery hazelnut cookies sandwich apricot or raspberry jam and melted chocolate. The cutouts on top cookies are made with tiny star-shaped cutters.

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Old-Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies

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Martha loves lemon (it's one of her very favorite flavors), and everyone will adore these classic crisp, citrusy cookies. To get the crinkly tops, the cookies are sprinkled with sanding sugar, then lightly brushed with water and sprinkled with more sanding sugar, then baked.

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Chewy Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies

Joseph De Leo

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These delicious, deeply flavored cookies are made with fresh ginger instead of the usual powdered spice. They have a big chocolaty taste thanks to both semisweet chocolate and cocoa powder. Dark-brown sugar and molasses give a wonderful chewy texture.

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Noel Nut Balls

Joseph De Leo

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When she makes these pecan cookies, a Kostyra family favorite, Martha portions the dough into larger balls than her mother's recipe calls for. She prefers them with more nuttier cookie and less confectioners' sugar.

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Shaped Icebox Cookies

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Martha has a handy technique for forming logs of cookie dough: She uses a sushi mat (a device usually reserved for forming rolls of rice and fish). And she likes to use Sicilian pistachios for these cookies because they have the best color and contrast nicely with dried apricots, cranberries, and other bright dried fruits.

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Brown-Butter Cookies

Chris Court

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Another simply exquisite cookie. Browned butter—butter that's been gently cooked until golden brown—seems to enhance just about anything it's added to, and this holiday treat is no exception.

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