9 More Recipes That’ll Win Everyone Over at Your Christmas Cookie Exchange

Christmas cookie exchanges are, first and foremost, an opportunity to hang out with your friends and eat some delicious holiday treats. But let’s be honest: they’re also a chance to prove that you’re the best baker in the group.

With that in mind, we’ve rounded up nine recipes that can’t be beat—in addition to the five we’ve already shared. You can never have too many, right?

Linzer Cookies

Linzer cookies are so pretty, you think they’d be complicated to make—but in fact, they’re quite simple. Roll out and cut your sugar cookie dough into basic shapes like squares or circles, and then carve out a small window in half of them. Once baked, spread the whole cookies with jam, place the windowed cookies on top and voilà!

Trashy Cookies

Baking for a crowd can be tough, but these Trashy Cookies should satisfy most tastes. And that’s because they’re filled with everything, including sweet chocolate chips (and/or chopped up chocolate bars), salty pretzels, peanut butter and chewy oats. The best thing about this recipe is that you can mix and match ingredients depending on what’s in your pantry.

Classic Shortbread

Does anyone make shortbread cookies outside of the holiday season? Perhaps that’s what makes this such a Christmas classic. If you feel like taking the flavour of this dough to the next level, try adding citrus zest, warm spices or even tea.

Winter Spice Snickerdoodles

Give the snickerdoodle a holiday makeover by adding a dash of nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and cloves. You’ll get the same puffy-yet-chewy cookie you love, plus a kick of winter spice. Made with browned butter, these also have a lovely nutty taste.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Some Christmas cookie recipes ask you to do a lot of manual work (from cutting to decorating with icing), but not this one! These dense, chewy, intensely chocolatey cookies have a pretty crackled effect—which can be achieved simply by rolling the dough in powdered sugar before baking.

Christmas Crackers

Christmas Crackers not only hit all the right flavour and texture notes—they’re sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy, buttery and chocolatey—but are also a cinch to make. If you’ve received a last-minute invite to a friend of a friend’s cookie exchange, turn to this recipe (and thank us later).

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

While these aren’t the most Christmassy cookies you can make, they’re guaranteed to please a crowd. Made with both milk and semisweet chocolate and sprinkled with flakey sea salt, they’re perfectly balanced. Make sure to save a couple of these for Santa to enjoy with his glass of milk.

Chewy Ginger Molasses Crinkles

These Chewy Ginger Molasses Crinkles taste great on their own, so feel free to stop there! Or give everyone an extra-special treat by using them to create cookie sandwiches. They’re a great vehicle for cream cheese frosting.

Salted, Peppered Caramels

If you want to do something a little outside the box, make a batch of these caramels instead of cookies. Soft, chewy caramel has long been paired with salt; a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper makes them even more irresistible.