12 Brand-New Holiday Cookies from Food Network Magazine

Whether you make them for yourself to enjoy or you give them away as edible gifts to all your friends and family members, Christmas cookies are a quintessential part of holiday time. Though classics like gingerbread men, thumbprints and sugar cookies will always hold a special place in our hearts (and on our holiday dessert table), we always recommend adding one or two new recipes to your yearly cookie baking rotation. Thanks to Food Network Magazine, you'll have more than enough brand-new ones to choose from this Christmas — 12 to be exact! Not sure where to begin? Try the festively-shaped Chocolate-Almond Spritz Cookies pictured above. They're 100% gluten-free, making them the perfect sweet treat for anyone on your "nice list" who might have dietary restrictions. Click through the rest of this gallery to see our remaining cookie recipes for 2022.

All photographs by Kate Sears for Food Network Magazine.

Caption text written by Michelle Baricevic for FoodNetwork.com.

Recipes by Jessica D’ambrosio, Richmond Flores, Melissa Gaman, Young Sun Huh, Khalil Hymore and Steve Jackson.

Store-bought apple cider and apple pie spice play a really important role in giving these beautiful shortbread cookies their cozy, warming flavor. We used a snowflake cookie stamp to give the cookies their whimsical design, but feel free to mix and match other holiday patterns as well.

Fans of pecan praline ice cream and cake will love this modern approach to the classic flavor pairing. Food Network Kitchen recipe developer Melissa Gaman also included a delicious frosting recipe, which features heavenly ingredients, like real vanilla bean paste and brown sugar.

These melt-in-your-mouth pistachio snowball cookies look just like glass Christmas ornaments thanks to their brightly hued powdered sugar coating. If you’ve made a mess when working with gel coloring in the past, Food Network Kitchen has a expert-approved tip for you: place both your confectioner’s sugar and the green gel directly in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles the color of a Christmas tree!

If you're looking for a holiday cookie that looks just as regal as it tastes, you’ll want to add these tricolored hazelnut-flour rugelach to your Christmas cookie rotation. The swirled beauties contain an out-of-this-world filling made from raspberry jam and dried cranberries that’s both merry and bright in flavor. If you’re heading to a cookie swap this year, be sure to take a container of these along with you.

These poppable thumbprint cookies taste just like a miniature cheesecake and might just dethroned classic jam-filled thumbprints as your all-time favorite holiday cookie. We love the inclusion of the shredded coconut, which also gives them a nice semi-crunchy texture.

Decorating freshly-baked Christmas cookies with royal icing can be intimidating, especially if you're trying to create intricate, detailed designs like these Gingerbread Reindeer. Thankfully, these marbled cookies are pretty easy to put together, since there's no right or wrong way to top them! In addition to their mesmerizing design, these treats also taste phenomenal due to their use of blood orange juice and zest.

If your December coffee shop order consistently includes a peppermint mocha latte, these equally refreshing sandwich cookies are for you. The decadent rounds include all the same flavor profiles thanks to ingredients like tart bittersweet chocolate, robust peppermint extract and crunchy crushed up candy canes.

These spicy glazed biscotti make the perfect dipper for all your favorite holiday-flavored teas, coffees, cocoas, nogs and other beverages.

Kids will love these Christmas-themed chocolate chip cookies, which contain a secret cookie butter filling hidden inside!

Though fruitcake often gets a bad rap for being overly dry, these bite-sized fruitcake cookies are bursting with a variety of yummy flavors and textures. Our test kitchen chefs used a zesty combination of dried and candied fruits like figs, currants, pineapples, cherries and orange peels to make the cookies’ fillings, though golden raisins, dried apricots, dates and prunes could work too.