Boxes mailed. I am very happy with this year’s baking. My cookies always look definitely homemade aka “rustic”. But line them up on a plate and they still get “oooh’s”. Top to bottom left-right: almond biscotti, oatmeal raisin - lemony stripes, apricot foldover - Mary B’s PB/marshmallow/Krispies candy, Pecan tassie, cranberry spiral - chocolate covered cherry cookie, Molasses Ginger Snap - Coconut Cranberry bar.
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A very appealing selection! Lucky recipients 
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Whew! Lotta work. Gorgeous!
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Tonight I’m scaling out some cookie recipes in preparation for a family gathering this weekend. It’ll be all half-recipes of a handful of the more approachable cookies slated for this year, and one slightly more offbeat recipe thrown in for good measure.
The line-up:
Epicurious ginger spice cookies
Dorie’s devil’s thumbprints
Salted pistachio shortbread
And the unusual cookie: lavender sandwich cookies with lemon curd filling. Not terribly Christmassy, but I’ve recently fallen for lavender shortbread and was able to score some culinary lavender at a good price, so we’re rolling with it.
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You did a fantastic job. I wish I had your enthusiasm!
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@mig - could you repost the Salted Pistachio Shortbread link? It goes to the Lavender Sandwich cookie link.
I keep doing this, sorry. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019807-salted-pistachio-shortbread?unlocked_article_code=1.708.-xxc.PlBPoZDU796q&smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
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Looks wonderful, thanks! Even I can make these. 
Just for comparison’s sake, here’s a pistachio shortbread cookie I used to make often:
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/3 c. shelled pistachios, ground finely in the blender
3-4 drops green food coloring, optional
1 drop almond extract
1 drop vanilla extract
1 tsp. walnut oil, optional
1 tsp milk, optional
8 pistachio nut halves, for decoration
2 tsp. turbinado sugar, for decoration
INSTRUCTIONS
-
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. With an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add flour, powdered sugar, extracts, food coloring, and pistachios; mix until combined. If dough is too dry, add the milk and walnut oil until it comes together.
-
Spread dough evenly into an 8-inch round cake pan lined with parchment. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar and top each 1/8 with a pistachio half. Bake until firm, 30 minutes. Immediately score into eight wedges; cool completely. Turn out of pan; break wedges apart.
Serve with whipped cream and sliced strawberries.
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They look way less rustic than mine!! I will start sending my boxes this weekend.. and will start handing them out to friends when I see them.
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Mixed my doughs last night, and made mom a cheese ball for a party today. Closed down the kitchen at 1:15 AM.
This evening I’ll bake the doughs to create my first phase of this year’s cookiepalooza. Half I’ll take to a small family thing tomorrow, the other half will go to my local country butcher shop, because those folks take real good care of me.
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I’m taking Pistachio-Cardamom Shortbread and Snickerdoodles to a mechanic who did a great job and saved me $.
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actually that’s not a bad idea - my auto shop is a TREASURE.
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Also looks good (and easy!), and I’ve printed it out. Thx!
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This is the result of the Peanut Brown Butter cookies recipe from this years NYT cookie collection, which has already gotten it’s much deserved side eye this year, both for the shrugworthiness of several of the recipes and for terrible pay scales.
The cookies here are quite tasty, and meant to evoke the sweet/salty combo of a Payday bar, and I LOVE Payday bars. But the effort/reward ratio for these is way off. The dough itself is dead simple, but it then calls for dunking the dough balls in egg wash and coating in peanuts. This is VERY VERY NON TRIVIAL. In fact, it’s a huge, incredibly messy pain in the ass. I have a feeling I could make semi-stiff caramel bars and make my own Paydays with less effort than rolling these things up and getting them coated took.
A- for taste, C- for effort required. It’d probably be easier taking the standard peanutbutter cookie recipe and pressing chopped peanuts into the tops if you want that texture. At least they’d probably stay together more easily.
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Yeah, the comments out on the interwebs align with yours. Pity.
Thanks for taking one for the team. I like the idea of these cookies. I also like the idea of simple and easy. Gonna have to pass!
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alright, we are about 4.5 hours into tonight’s bake-a-thon.
- half-batch of dorie’s devil’s thumbprints- baked, await filling tomorrow.
- half-batch of Epicurious ginger spice cookies baked.
- half-batch of lavender shortbread cookies baked, await lemon curd filling tomorrow.
- a last-minute addition, Nicola Lamb’s pistachio lemon amaretti (I’ve never made amaretti before of any kind) in the oven.
- a quarter-batch of Luisa Weiss’ lebkuchen is rolled out, cut and drying on the cookie sheets; will be baked after the amaretti. I want to enrobe them in chocolate tomorrow - we will see if that happens.
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the amaretti are whoa.
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“Enrobed” sultry, intriguing.
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