Our 2025 Holiday Cookie Recipes

Here at Greenlake Guest House, we bake dozens of cookies to give away to guests and our friends and family every holiday season. We tend to bake longtime favorites, old family recipes, and usually we try a new recipe or two just for the fun of it.

What makes a great holiday cookie? In our minds, the top cookies are super tasty, festive looking, not too fussy, but also special. For example, chocolate chip cookies are delicous, but in our opinion they don't quite make the cut as a Christmas holiday cookie.

This year, we won't be baking quite as many cookies as usual because we innkeepers have retired and we don't have all those guests to bake for. Here are 4 of our favorites that we have selected for this our 2025 recipe collection: Candy Cane Snowballs, Grandma Pond's Sugar Cookies, Classic Linzer Cookies, and Aunt Bette's Nanaimo Bars.

These buttery Candy Cane Snowballs are absolutely delicious and look great in a holiday cookie tray. They are similar to a Mexican Wedding Cake but a bit more dressed up.

Prep time: 45 minutes plus time for chilling dough

Yield: 5 dozen cookies

2 cups (4 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3-1/2 cups flour

1 cup chopped pecans

8 oz white candy coating, melted

1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies

Mix butter and powdered sugar together in stand mixer for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and blend well. Gradually beat in flour. Stir in pecans. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours.

Shape dough with your hands into 1 inch balls and place on parchment on cookie sheet (note: I often freeze the dough balls at this point and put them in a gallon ziplock bag to bake when I am ready to use them).

Bake at 350F until set and lightly brown on bottom, about 15 minutes. Remove from pans and let cool completely.

Dip tops of cookies into melted candy coating, allowing excess to drip off, then drip into crushed peppermint. Let stand until set.

 I often freeze the dough balls at this point and put them in a gallon ziplock bag to bake when I am ready to use them.

 

Julie's Grandma Pond made these sugar cookies for years. Grandma would roll them out pretty thin so they were fairly crispy, almost like a sweet cracker. Julie can't remember visiting when there wasn't a tin sitting on her counter full of these sweet treats, often topped with finely chopped nuts or maybe a little toasted coconut. They will keep for a couple weeks in a cookie tin.

Prep Time: About 1 hour plus time for chilling the dough

Yield: About 6 dozen

1 cup shortening or butter (Grandma always used shortening)

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F. Cream shortening or butter together with sugar in stand mixer. Add eggs, vanilla, and sour cream and blend well. Add dry ingredients last and blend well. Be careful not to get dough too stiff.

Chill dough for a couple hours or overnight, then roll out, just under 1/4 inch thick (thinner if you like them crispy like Grandma did). Sprinkle with colored sugar, nuts, or coconut and cut into squares.  Transfer to ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 5-7 minutes.

I like to cut the cookies into shapes first and then sprinkle with colored sugar prior to baking at the holidays so the cookies look more festive. You can re-roll the dough as needed.

If you want to prep the dough partially ahead of time, you can divide the dough into 3 balls and roll the balls to about 1/4 inch thick between 2 layers of parchment paper. Next, wrap the parchment dough layers in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator (for a couple days) or freezer (up to a month ahead).  Cut the dough into shapes and bake the cookies when you are ready to use (thaw the dough first, if frozen).

 

These pretty Linzer cookies just seem to shout "Christmas" to me. In past years,  have filled them with raspberry or strawberry jam, homemade or puchased lemon curd, or even Nutella. They look harder than they really are! This recipe was adapted from Delish.

Prep Time: 1 hour plus time for chilling dough

Yield: about 2 dozen

1-1/2 cups almond flour (almond meal)

1-1/2 all purpose flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam or lemon curd for filling

Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer for a few minutes until light and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and mix in. Add dry ingredients (flours, cinnamon, cloves, and salt) until blended in (do not overmix).

Divide dough in half and place each disk between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Roll out to 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. Place on a plate and put in refrigerator for about 2 hours.

When chilled, remove 1 sheet of parchment and cut out cookies with a 2-inch round cookie cutter or glass. Use a smaller cookie cutter to cut out centers of half the cookies for the "window." Re-roll dough as needed (you may want to put it back in the refrigerator if it gets too soft).

Place on baking sheet lined with more parchment. Divide the cookies with windows and those without. Bake cookies at 375F for 7-9 mninutes, until golden at edges (cookies with the windows will bake a little faster) and let cool.

When cookies have cooled, sprinkle powdered sugar generously on the cookies with the windows. Put about 1/2 tsp jam or lemon curd in the center of each of the remaining cookies  and spread almost to edge of cookies with a knife or offset spatula. Assemble cookies into a sandwich with the powdered sugar side up.

This recpe only makes about 24 cookies, so I usually double it. Chilling the dough in layers of parchment paper makes the process much simpler. I have a special cookie cutter set to put the design in the top layer of the sandwich.

Because the layer with the cut out design bakes a little bit faster, I try to divide the tops from the bottom onto different baking sheets when I am making them. Dust the tops prior to putting the sandwiches together.

These rich bar cookies are a family tradition that Julie's Aunt Bette made for decades every Christmas. Julie and her sister have continued the tradition since the mid 80's. I often like to add a few festive sprinkles to the top layer at Christmastime.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Yield: About 24-48 bar cookies in a 9x13 pan (yield depends on the size of the bars)

1  cup (2 sticks) butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 oz unsweetened chocolate squares (like Baker's brand)

2 eggs, beaten

4 cups graham cracker crumbs (buy these pre-ground or do it yourself in the Cuisinart)

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

2 cups sweetened, shredded coconut

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened

4 Tbsp instant vanilla pudding (dry mix; I use Jello brand)

6 Tbsp milk

4 cups powdered sugar

8 oz semi sweet chocolate squares

2 Tbsp butter

Place 1 cup butter, sugar, and unsweetened chocolate in double boiler top and cook until well blended. Add egg and cook 5 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Add graham cracker crumbs, nuts, coconut, and vanilla. Press in bottom of 9x13 pan. Cool 15 minutes.

Cream together 1 cup softened butter for a couple minutes until fluffy. Beat in pudding mix and milk. Add powdered sugar gradually, beating until smooth. Spread over first layer. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Melt semi-sweet chocolate with remaining 2 Tbsp butter in double boiler or microwave at 50% power. Spread chocolate mixture over middle layer using a knife or offset spatula. Chill until firm. Cut into squares before completely hardened. Keep refrigerated.

Be sure to cut the bars after they chill for an hour or so, before they fully harden, or the top chocolate layer will shatter. The Nanaimo Bars will still taste great, but won't look as nice.

Also, pay close attention when you are measuring the unsweetened and semisweet chocolate.  A few years ago, most baking chocolate manufacturers changed how many squares are in an ounce of chocolate. While the modern bars (like Baker's brand) still come in 4 ounce packages, the package is divided into 16 squares instead of 4. So be sure to count the ounces, not the squares, when you are using an older recipe. I have already converted the squares to ounces for you in this very old recipe.

Christmas, and the entire winter holiday season, is so meaningful to us. It is a time for remembering traditions and showing our love and care for others.  Baking cookies for friends and family is part of that tradition. Please enjoy these special Greenlake Guest House cookie recipes. See our older holiday blogs for more cookie and other baking ideas!