Make these festive cookies

3 recipes guaranteed to fill your home with holiday cheer.

Every December for the last 15 years, my wife and I have hosted a holiday cookie party. We won’t be able to do that this year, of course, and of all of the many things we’ve had to give up in 2020, this one might sting the most. While we won’t have a crowd of people sandbagging their black sweaters with powdered sugar, I’m still going to make a big assortment, which will include the three cookies here, one of my own devising, the others from some of the best cookbooks of fall.

Instead of gathering friends to eat them, my plan is to fill tins and drop them off on doorsteps. I generally find shipped cookies to be disappointing — it’s hard to ensure they’ll arrive in good condition, no matter how well they’re packed. Instead, consider sending a favorite recipe ( or a cookbook containing a favorite recipe), along with some of the ingredients or tools needed to make them.

I spent the fall tinkering with a recipe for cannoli cookies, which I’ll be adding to my tins this year. These are cakey and tender, plush little pillows that get their texture from the addition of ricotta to the batter. While traditional Italian cookies are most often flavored with either lemon or anise, I instead added orange zest and juice and chopped chocolatedipped orange peel, then dipped each cookie in icing and sprinkled them with toasted pistachios.

If you’re searching for more new cookie ideas of your own, we’ve included a few more from cookbooks that came out this year, tested and selected by Chronicle staff writer Janelle Bitker. The Neapolitan Cookies from food blogger Sarah Kieffer are a fun, beautiful and highly giftable riff on sugar cookies, with three slightly altered doughs pressed together. The buttery, nutty Pistachio Pinwheels from Claire Saffitz give off an air of elegance despite being fairly easy to execute — and with the green from pistachios, they look festive for the holiday season, too.

I hope next year is different, and that on some Sunday in December my friends and I are gathered together again. There will be so much to celebrate, great cookies will be the least of it.

Sarah Kieffer Neapolitan cookies are a fun twist on chewy sugar cookies, as seen in “100 Cookies” by Sarah Kieffer ( Chronicle Books).