To kick off the December holiday season, I shared a favorite family cookie recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. Vanilla Bean Cookies are an appropriate way to start a month that emphasizes baking not only for their flavor but also because of how you create them: by making the cookies and letting them sit for several weeks. They’re the first cookies I make each holiday season, quickly followed by Chocolate Rum Balls, and they’re some of the first to be devoured when I crack open the cookie tins.

These cookies are special to me because of their history in my family and because friends continue to adopt them and include them in their own holiday traditions. My grandmother’s original recipe seemed untouchable, but I recently improved on it by switching to organic ingredients, especially a tapioca-based powdered sugar instead of one laced with cornstarch to prevent caking. After years of making this recipe, the flavor and texture were better than ever, making the extra cost well worth it.

Learn more about baking cookies and get the complete recipe for Vanilla Bean Cookies in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

In my family, there’s no such thing as “a Christmas cookie.” The holiday dessert is always plural, with multiple batches and varieties that expand to fill every large container available.

Some of the cookies that have become holiday favorites only appear once a year, but others are so delicious they pop up whenever the mood hits. In addition to Vanilla Bean Cookies, these are a few of the cookie recipes on the blog that take a little more time, effort, or both, making them worthy of celebrations.

• Chocolate Rum Balls
• Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookies
• Peanut–Ganache Thumbprint Cookies
• Biscotti in Assorted Flavors

When I want to quickly round out a cookie tray, I turn to recipes that are easy enough to be everyday cookies but so delicious they can hold their own alongside fancier sweets. Here are some of my favorites; you can find more in the recipe index.

• Pumpkin–Chocolate Cookies
• Smoky Oatmeal–Cranberry Cookies
• Triple Gingersnaps
• Improv Shortbread Cookies

You can also learn about using sourdough starter when making cookies in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.