This year, to assemble our own overstuffed cookie box, the Bon Appétit team created six recipes inspired by the flavors of their hometowns. From shortbread bars with Chicago’s preeminent caramel-and-cheese popcorn mix as their muse to a delicate sandwich cookie evoking an afternoon tea in Chennai, India, these treats taste like our holidays of years past, spent in the places we hold most dear. We invite you to share in the memories and make them a part of your gathering. Each will bring a little sweetness to your table no matter where you’re celebrating. —Kendra Vaculin
Hot Chocolate Cookies
The jig was up the year our Christmas presents were held hostage by the frosted-over trunk of my parents’ car—a rare occurrence for typically mild Tennessee winters. At nine years old, I was the youngest and already suspicious, but Santa’s frozen gifts confirmed it: The holiday no longer hinged on his arrival. From then on, our Christmas Eve ritual took a new form—fancy dinner, followed by midnight Mass, then home for presents before traipsing to bed. But before any unwrapping could begin, my mother would dash to the kitchen to whip up a batch of hot chocolate. She always used Nesquik, a chocolaty powder containing, among other things, a whisper of cinnamon. Eventually, my siblings and I would decline the cocoa, opting to pour ourselves a cocktail instead, but the memory of those flavors is still with me. Come to think of it, these milky sweet, spiced cookies would taste as good with a whiskey on the rocks as they would a warm glass of milk. —Joe Sevier, senior SEO and cooking editor
Cheddar Caramel Slices
The Windy City is famous for many things—hot dogs “dragged through the garden,” Portillo’s iconic chocolate cake, pizza as deep as lasagna—but perhaps my favorite of the bunch is Chicago-style popcorn. The kooky blend of cheddar and caramel corn is a Midwest staple, popularized by Garrett Popcorn and embraced for its perfect balance of sweet and savory flavors. Growing up in the Chicagoland area, I looked forward to the annual tin, unhinging my jaw as wide as possible while scarfing it down by the fistful. These bars borrow that same winning combination, reimagined into a cookie fit for the holidays. Savory cheddar shortbread does double duty, acting as a crisp base while also getting crumbled into a rubble-like topping alongside puffed caramel corn. A thick layer of chewy caramel holds everything together. It’s an unexpected treat that’s sure to steal the show. —Jesse Szewczyk, senior test kitchen editor
Masala Tea Creme Pies
Growing up in Chennai, I felt like I could tell time based on when hot drinks were served in our house. The city is famed for its coffee, blended with chicory root and poured into glasses in dramatic foot-long streams, but ours was a tea household. My parents’ Guzzini mugs would come out promptly at 6:30 a.m. and once more at 4 p.m., the time I, with my mandated mug of milk, looked forward to most of all because it meant an accompanying packet of shortbread wasn’t far away. We’d sit together with our basset hound, Droopy, in the orange-tiled backyard, my grandmother too, when she was still alive, drinking our drinks, dunking our biscuits, discussing what dinner might be (the dog’s standing request was chicken gizzards). The combination of spiced milky tea and cookies will always be the taste of home to me. These tea-laced sandwich cookies capture that memory precisely. —Shilpa Uskokovic, senior test kitchen editor
Cranberry-Wine Swirl Cookies
I left northern California at 18—a few years shy of being able to reap the benefits of living so close to wine country. Now my trips home regularly feature a local bottle or two, which my dad carefully pairs with my mom’s holiday cooking (I know, adorable). These pinwheel-style cookies use a classic sugar dough, rolled around a layer of quick cranberry jam made with red wine. The cranberries’ acidity plays so well with the tannins in the wine, and their pectin firms up the jam so that it doesn’t seep out when baked. While I’d never recommend baking (or cooking) with your best bottle, you can certainly serve these cookies alongside glasses of the good stuff. They’re not too sweet and just as at home on a cheese plate as they are after dinner. —K.V., contributor
Peppermint Black-and-White Cookies
I didn’t grow up in a baking household. As the Asian immigrant lore goes, our oven (and dishwasher, while we’re at it) was, indeed, used primarily for storage. That isn’t to say that we didn’t love baked goods. One of my favorites growing up was the classic black-and-white cookie found in many New York City bakeries and Jewish delis. It was a real treat to pick one up after a museum or gallery trip with my mom. She’d usually go for a date rugelach while I’d beeline to the giant graphic treats, nibbling my way across each flavor and down, being sure to get a balanced mix of both vanilla and chocolate. My preference for a soft cakey cookie can probably be traced back to my love for these. This cookie is a riff on the extra-large New York classic shrunk down to the size of a chubby chocolate chip cookie, featuring refreshing peppermint extract (when in doubt, be stingy) and a sprinkle of festive crushed candy canes. —Hana Asbrink, deputy food editor
Key Lime Pie Thumbprint Cookies
While the weather may be (in)famously temperate, you can almost always tell what season it is in Southern California by the produce at the markets. Come the shorter, if not much colder, days of winter, stacks of local citrus are everywhere. And yet, every year while I was growing up, my grandfather was sure to send a generous gift box of softball-size ruby red grapefruits nestled alongside navel oranges, seedless mandarins, and bags of Key limes straight from Florida to my family in Santa Monica. A handful of the oranges would be sure to find homes in the toes of our stockings hung by the fireplace. Grapefruits were sliced open and served under thick layers of crunchy granulated sugar. And Key limes? They were most certainly destined for pies. While these cookies invert the classic ratio of crust to custardy filling (these are for you, crust lovers), they’re an affectionate homage to the dessert I associate most with the holiday season, and my lovingly stubborn grandpa. Blitzed graham crackers and all-purpose flour come together in a buttery, brown-sugar-sweetened dough that stays soft and chewy after baking. In the center of each thumbprint, a dollop of silky, tart lime filling sets during the cookies’ brief stint in the oven, just like their full-size namesake. —Kelsey Jane Youngman, senior service editor