I have been gluten free for almost two years now. In that time I have discovered that there are a lot of sawdust tastin’ turds out there disguised as gluten free cookies. Those are not the treats you are going to make this year.  You are going to make buttery, sugary, chocoately deliciousness. You can tell people they are gluten free, but they aren’t going to care. They’ll be too busy asking for more.

Many of the recipes I’ve love are naturally gluten free. They don’t call for xantham gum or lecithin–things I feel weird about buying.  They are old recipes based on nuts or egg whites or cooked sugar. Some you might have made for Christmases past, some you might have never heard of. I ordered this list from most familiar to least, but all of them are delicious.

1. ENGLISH TOFFEE: It simply would not be Christmas without a batch of english toffee. It is quick, simple, and everyone loves it. You cannot go wrong with the old favorites. And look I happen to have a recipe for english toffee right here.

2. MARSHMALLOWS: We are making peppermint marshmallows for my kids’ classmates this year. Making marshmallows is strangely magical. You start with a little sugar and gelatin and end up with fluffy sweet pillows. The image above is from a Martha Stewart recipe for peppermint marshmallows, but they can be flavored in a thousand different ways: toasted coconut, dulce de leche, coffee, anything!

3. CARAMELS: Every Christmas I make an absurd number of caramels and give them to my friends and family (and mailman and yoga instructor and neighbors and anyone else I know). The Martha Stewart recipes have not failed me yet. The gingerbread caramels are my favorite, but the chocolate ones are lovely, and the golden caramels are even better flecked with crunch salt.

4. FRENCH MACARONS: This is the hardest recipe to make on the list, but well worth the effort. Last year I made peppermint, chocolate, and lemon ones for Christmas. The ones pictured above are my favorite to date: vanilla macarons filled with mascarpone cheese and boysenberry jam. Whatever flavor you make, do yourself a favor and follow the recipe and tutorial on the Not So Humble Pie blog. It is excellent.

5. SUGAR PLUMS: We go from the hardest recipe to the easiest. Dead easy.  I don’t know if these are what sugar plums actually are–does anyone know?–but they are delicious. Almonds and orange zest, cinnamon and nutmeg, apricots and dates. They taste like Christmas. They are gluten free, no bake, and vegan to boot.

6. BASLER BRUNSLI: These swiss cookies are simple and sophisticated. It is an almond based cookie held together with egg whites and melted chocolate, and flavored with cinnamon and cloves. They don’t spread at all when baked, making them perfect for your cookie cutter collection. This beautiful photo of basler brunsli is from a lovely greek blog.

7. CINNAMON STARS: Even though these German cookies have many of the same ingredients as Basler Brunsli, they are somehow completely different. Nut based and flavored with lemon zest and cinnamon, they are brushed with a meringue before they are baked. When you bite into one you get a little crunch from the meringue, but then it gives way to the chewy, cinnamon-y cookie below.

8. DACQUOISE: Dacquoise is just a word for a nut based meringue. You can have hazelnut, almond, pistachio, or pecan dacquoise–any nut will do. Usually you make a dacquoise cake layered with pastry cream and chocolate. Dacquoise is incredibly versatile and quite simple. I think it’s strange it’s not more well known. These little hazelnut dacquoise cookies sandwiched together with chocolate ganache are just right for Christmas.

9. DUTCH CREAM TRUFFLES: I haven’t made these yet, but they are on my list this year. Dutch cream truffles are made by whipping butter, then adding a mixture of cream, vanilla, and sugar that has been warmed until sugar dissolves and then cooled. This sweet cream cloud is then shaped, frozen, dipped in chocolate, and rolled in cocoa. I mean seriously.

I found the recipe in the book Sugar and Spice by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra. The book is absolutely amazing. Chock full of sweets from around the world and half–if not more–are naturally gluten free. If you love making desserts of all kinds, you must check this book out.

10. CALISSONS: I have never tasted a calisson, but the recipe intrigues me. Traditionally it is made by grinding almonds, candied melon, and adding orange flower water to make a paste. Then it’s rolled out, cut into shapes, and frosted with royal icing. Doesn’t it sound amazing? And there are many variations, like orange and ginger calissons pictured above in an amazing photograph from the French blog, Carnets Parisiens.

That’s it! Well really there are so many more, but it’s a start. Are any of these new to you? Do you have any naturally gluten free treats on your Christmas cookie list this year? Have I made you hungry?

The cookie baking blizzard came and went this year already (and weirdly, left no snow). All the butter! All the cream! All the chocolate! All the nuts and dried fruit! Okay, so the last one isn’t so exciting, but there was a lot of fruit and nuts in this house for a while. Panforte, anyone?

I don’t think I made any new recipes this year, which is odd.  No wait, I made one new recipe, but I can’t tell you because there are some of you out there getting it! Oh and the linzer cookies were new to me, but not terribly exciting. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here are the deets:

caramels: three kinds, all by martha, gingerbread, chocolate, and plain with sea salt on top

sugar plums: Honestly, I make these mostly because of the name. How could you pass up sugar plums at Christmas? These are spice filled, honey sweetened, date and almond laden-ed bits of christmas past. And they are vegan to boot.

hazelnut thumbprints: My daughter and I like these the best. This year I put a bit of ganache in the middle instead of the usual jam. Surprisingly, the jam is better, but no one has complained about the chocolate.

english toffee: I make this every christmas, but this year I got all fancy and cut it in squares instead of breaking it in pieces. You have to cut it when it’s not too hot and not too cool. And hey, it worked! Also, I ate all the ones that broke.

alfajores: These were a new addition to the cookie roster last year and I’ve been thinking about them since! Creamy, caramelicious dulce de leche sandwiched between two light, flaky cookies with a crunch of sugar on top. Bomb! And hey, I wrote up a recipe for you on Dana’s blog for her Sweets and Treats Christmas Countdown.

Oh and those linzers up there at the top of the page: wow, linzer cookies are kind of a pain in the butt. They just look so damn christmasy I had to make them. I used Karen DeMasco’s recipe from The Craft of Baking (a killer book by the way). It was chock full of orange peel and nutmeg and hazelnuts. The texture was perfect, but I wasn’t keen on the taste. It was almost too grown up and boring. Maybe a boozy filling would have made it grown up in a good way.

Gingerbread men too: well you have to make gingerbread men (look more instagraminess).

Merry Christmas everyone! We’re off to Grannyma’s. I’ll see you back here on Monday!

There have been some lovely things coming out of the oven these days. I always tell myself I won’t make a thousand kinds of cookies this year, but then well: there are the ones I always make and the ones my mom used to make and the favorite ones from last year and the new recipe I found this year. I kind of like getting carried away, but the problem is that I tend to favor the extra complicated cookies at christmastime and I come away never wanting to see another cookie again. This year that hasn’t happened. yet.

fig pinwheels: these were a favorite from a few years back but they are less exciting to me now. The dough is super delicious, but the filling is too figgy. I think next year I’ll make it with dates and orange peel.

english toffee: always good.

hazelnut thumbprints: I made these last year and didn’t give any away because they were so good. This year I made a double batch (so I could share) and filled them all with apricot jam.

basler brunsli: I think these are Swiss cookies? They are chocolate and almond and rum and so grown up and wonderful. I’m going to share the recipe with you next week.

alfajores: this was a new one for me this year and blazzam! they are amazing. Two little flaky cookies, like barely sweetened pie crust with dulche de leche inside. awesome.

mexican hot chocolate cookies: these are new to me too and they are lame. The cookies are boring and not spicy at all. Oh well, there has to be one crummy recipe every year.

gingerbread and ganache sandwich men: I think gingerbread and chocolate are the best together, so I made these little sandwiches. How could they not be good?

All of the cookies I’ve made so far are packaged up and ready to go, but I’m working on another list: christmas cookies just for us. So far I have down these (which I make every year) and these (which are a perfect new twist on an old christmas favorite).

I bought the Liberty of London cookie jar from target for my mom’s birthday. I also picked up a kid’s sundress while I was there solely for the fabric, but now a little bird tells me they will be selling cotton curtain panels (aka straight up yardage) sometime soon!

Now you can’t just give someone a cookie jar and not put cookies in it, so I made some chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies and damn if they weren’t pretty good.  Dried cherries are dear, but they are so, so good. Raisins would work, but then they would just be oatmeal raisin cookies and that’s no fun.

Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 tea salt
• 1 1/2 cups oats
• 1 cup dried cherries
• 3.5  ounces good dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream the butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg and mix on high speed to combine. Then add the vanilla.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the mixer (make sure it’s on low) and mix just until combined. Add the oats, cherries, and chocolate and mix by hand.
4. Spoon heaping tablespoons full of dough, a couple inches apart, onto a lined baking sheet.
5. Bake cookies until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool and give away or keep them all for yourself.

Cookies! My favorite thing about christmas is always the cookies. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t made a single christmas cookie yet, but these chocolate espresso ones are on deck (or in the freezer, whatever) and I have a gingerbread project in the works. In past years I have made (and loved) these fig pinwheels, these amazing spoon cookies, english toffee, gunpowder balls (but everyone has a different name for them), chocolate gingerbread cookies, surprisingly good earl grey tea cookies, prune rugelach (could a cookie sound more geriatric? don’t let that stop you -they are good), these pain in the ass, but so so awesome chestnut cream cookies, and I guess I could just go on and on, but I’m getting hungry. What cookies are you making this year? Feel free to put it off to tomorrow and just sit down and color with your kids today. Download the cookie page here (and buy the whole book here, if you like).