It’s time to start indulging in some festive baking, and this collection of Christmas cookie and biscuit recipes will have your kitchen filled with the gorgeous scent of nutmeg and ginger in no time.
We’ve put together a selection of our favourite festive cookies, including a chewy lebkuchen-inspired recipe and classic cakey crinkle cookies, and have gathered up some of the best biscuits for the festive season, including beautifully decorated home-baked gifts and fun family baking projects to get stuck into over the school holidays.
Looking for more Christmas baking inspiration? Explore our classic Christmas bakes, festive baking projects and easiest baking recipes.
Christmas Cookies
Jane’s Patisserie’s Crinkle Cookies
These classic chocolate cookies from Jane’s Patisserie get a festive finish with their snowy icing sugar tops. A lovely un-complicated bake to make with the kids over the holidays!
Nigella Lawson’s Linzer Cookies
Nigella uses ground toasted hazelnuts to create a rich, tender dough in her take on the Austrian Christmas classic, Linzer cookies.
Clissold Park Christmas Crinkle Cookies
These cookies provide the ultimate chocolatey, vanilla-y goodness to evoke Christmas and comfort. Best served with a hot warming drink.
Meliz Berg’s Almond-filled Celebration Cookies
These icing sugar-dusted and almond-stuffed cookies are the perfect treat for the festive season and make for budget-friendly edible gifts for friends and family.
Lebkuchen Toffee Cookies
Taking inspiration from the spices you find in German gingerbread, or lebkuchen, these perfectly chewy cookies are flavoured with a festive gingerbread spice blend that features cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cardamom that will fill your kitchen with the scent of Christmas.
Snowman Puddle Peanut Butter Cookies
Chewy, crisp peanut butter cookies are the perfect base for these adorable melted white chocolate snowmen. Get the kids involved and let them customise their snowmen with their favourite treats.
Christmas Biscuits
White Chocolate Biscotti
These pretty white chocolate biscotti from Jane’s Patisserie can be finished off with your choice of chopped nuts or freeze dried raspberries. Package them up as an edible gift, or keep them all to yourself.
From the book
Jane’s Patisserie: 100 deliciously customisable cakes, bakes, and treats
Bold, colourful, customisable bakes for every skill level
From tea time treats to celebration centrepieces
Accompanied by Jane’s top tips and baking hacks
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Rochelle Humes’ Gingerbread Biscuits
Rochelle Humes’ take on the classic gingerbread biscuit is a fun, festive, and kid-friendly recipe; perfect for getting the whole family in the Christmas mood.
Nadiya Hussain’s Ginger and Almond Florentines
These delicate biscuits are laced with crystallised ginger, sliced almonds and orange zest. Dipped into chocolate, they make for charming festive gifts.
Piparkakut
These piparkakut, a classic Finnish Christmas treat from Baking School: The Bread Ahead Cookbook, are packed with warm Christmas spices.
Christmas Biscuit Wreath
Dust off your piping bags and set aside an afternoon to make this Christmas wreath, a biscuit extravaganza from Biscuiteers Book of Iced Gifts.
Christmas Honey Biscuits: Melomakarona
Also known as Melomakarona, these Cypriot-inspired biscuits are fragrant with spices and drenched in a sticky syrup. As Georgina says, “they have been an incredibly popular addition to our kitchen”.
Stained Glass Tree Biscuits
A cute addition to any Christmas tree, these stained glass biscuits from The Great British Bake Off: Christmas are easy to make and a fun activity for the kids to get involved in.
Candy Cane Biscuits
Nothing says Christmas quite like classic striped candy canes, and these candy canes in biscuit form are no different. Perfect as a decorative treat to fill the biscuit jar, or give them to friends and family as an edible gift.
Bread Ahead’s Amaretti Biscuits
These classic amaretti biscuits from Baking School: The Bread Ahead Cookbook are an irresistible Italian treat, and with a snowy dusting of icing sugar they really look the part at Christmas time.
Cranberry, Oat and White Chocolate Biscuits
For an elegant home-baked gift, Ottolenghi’s cranberry, oat and white chocolate biscuits will do the trick, with notes of cranberry for a festive flavour.
Gingerbread Nativity
A true Christmas showstopper, this gingerbread nativity from The Great British Bake Off: Christmas is a fantastic activity to bring the family together.
Spiced Biscotti with an Orange Syllabub Dip
Nadiya adds a clever festive twist to an Italian classic with her spiced biscotti from Nadiya’s Kitchen. Served with an orange syllabub dip, they make a moreish tea-time or after dinner treat.
Florentines
Essential to any Christmas biscuit selection, these florentines from The Great British Bake Off: Christmas are full of festive flavours and make a luxurious homemade gift when packaged in a cellophane bag and tied up with a colourful ribbon.
