To us, the perfect winter cookie is full of texture, warming spices, and plenty of dried fruit or chocolate. Here are 12 cookies that ship well, taste great and look dazzling on a serving platter.

Belgian Spice Cookies (Speculoos)

Speculoos, Belgian spice cookies, are known for their light, crisp, airy texture and cinnamon-brown sugar flavor. Be sure to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy to achieve the right texture. The dough can be cut into any shape (try Christmas trees, stars or hearts), but the baking time may need to be adjusted, so keep an eye on the cookies while baking. These crowd-pleasing cookies are great for packing and shipping.

Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies with Browned Butter Icing

Gingerbread might get all the press, but molasses cookies are the unsung hero. These generously-sized cookies are soft and cake-like. They’re spiced with cinnamon and ground ginger, but their flavor is mostly about the bittersweet, subtly smoky notes of molasses. For a bit of pizzazz worthy of the holiday season, dress these cookies with a drizzle of browned butter icing to give them a rich flavor and an elegant finish.

Spiced Citrus-Plum Linzer cookie

Linzer cookies are tender and sweet, with traditional versions using almond meal in the dough and a raspberry, strawberry or apricot jam filling. Our spin features the sweet-tartness of plum jam and the irresistible combination of citrus, hazelnuts, and spice. We give details on grinding and toasting your own hazelnut flour, but you can absolutely use pre-ground flour—just don’t forget to toast it for maximum nutty flavor.

Chocolate Almond Spice Cookie

Intense chocolate, warming spices and a crystalline sugar coating make this cookie perfect for December. This drop cookie is riff on the Swiss holiday cookie, Basler Brunsli. It’s easy to shape, and bursting with the flavors of ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and extra chocolate chunks. Almond flour, not wheat flour, is the primary ingredient, which makes this cookie naturally gluten-free.

Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

We combine the allure of a chocolate chip and pecan cookie with the heartiness of an oatmeal cookie and intensify the flavors with special treatment. Toasting the oats and pecans brings out their nuttiness, and the butter is browned to give it a butterscotch-y note. These cookies have a thick, rustic texture due to the ground oats. If packing to ship, be sure to cool completely or chill them first, so the chocolate chunks set.

Chocolate Biscotti with Pistachios, Almonds and Dried Cherries

These dark chocolate slices are made with a combination of cocoa powder and chopped bittersweet chocolate. We prefer to use Dutch-processed cocoa here, as it gives the cookies a deeper flavor and darker color. That, paired with a flavor boost from instant espresso powder, balances the flavor so they're not too sweet. The mosaic of exposed pistachios, almonds and dried cherries offer a festive display for your holiday table.

Turkish Date-Filled Semolina Cookies

Holiday cookies and treats are special. They deserve the sprinkles, the cookie press and the powdered sugar. These cookies are right at home in a lineup of special treats. Covered in a soft, pastry-like semolina dough, these cookies are packed with a sweet date filling spiked with orange zest and cinnamon. You can fill these cookies by hand, or use a kömbe mold to press delicate shapes into the surface.

Sour Cherry Rugelach

We created a version of this cookie that balances flaky, pastry-like crust with a thick, fruity filling. We found that using cream cheese in the dough brings tender lightness to the wrapping and a richer flavor. In the no-cook filling, dried sour cherries absorb the moisture of apricot preserves, creating a jammy, fruity interior; cinnamon and cardamom add a warm holiday aroma.

Dried Cherry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Fudge-y dark chocolate and chewy dried cherries create a rich flavor and texture combination. Inspired by Bourke Street Bakery’s cookies, we rehydrate the dried cherries in balsamic vinegar, which packs the fruit with a pleasant tanginess. These chunky cookies are fun to roll with the little ones, and wonderful with a glass of milk.

Swedish Ginger Snaps (Pepparkakor)

For snappy, spicy cookies, we turn to a mixture of warm spices, sugars and corn syrup. Baking soda (instead of baking powder) encourages browning and gives these Swedish ginger cookies (known as pepparkakor) a lift. We decided to mix ground and fresh ginger, black pepper and cayenne to give them their distinct flavor and bright ginger-y heat. Be sure to pack and seal these cookies in an airtight container so they keep their signature texture.

Benne Seed Cookies

Sesame seeds are known as benne seeds in the South, and these cookies are a nod to traditional Southern benne wafers. The unconventional addition of tahini reinforces the nutty notes of the toasted sesame seeds, and browned butter brings richness and depth of flavor. We use turbinado sugar to give the cookies an interesting texture that catches the light, as well as hints of molasses. Mixing black and white sesame seeds gives these treats the look of falling confetti or tuxedo sprinkles; perfect for New Years Eve.

Meringue Cookies with Salted Peanuts and Chocolate

Our airy, melt-in-your-mouth meringues are light, crisp and cloud-like—perhaps even snow-like? You can make them plain, of course, but we recommend including salted peanuts and chocolate (a combination that we find hard to turn down). Humidity is the enemy of meringue, so be sure to store these in an airtight container and they’ll keep well for up to five days of snacking.

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Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Allie Chantorn Reinmann is a Digital Staff Writer for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. She’s a Thai-American chef who earned her diploma for Pastry and Baking Arts at The Institute of Culinary Education and worked professionally for over a decade honing her craft in New York City at places like Balthazar, Bien Cuit, The Chocolate Room, Billy’s Bakery and Whole Foods. Allie took her know-how from the kitchen to the internet, writing about food full-time at Lifehacker for three years and starting her own YouTube channel, ThaiNYbites. You can find her whipping up baked goods for cafés around Brooklyn, building wedding cakes and trying her hand (feet?) at marathon running. She’s working on her debut cookbook and lives in Brooklyn, NY.