Make Ahead

These scrumptious bar cookies are dense with plenty of cashew chunks, toffee bits, and butterscotch chips.

Children love these two-bite treats. When you prepare them, have a bowl of ice water ready. If reshaping the thumbprint is necessary during baking, dip your finger in the water for several seconds and allow to dry before reshaping. This will keep your finger cool.

John Barricelli, a longtime friend of Martha Stewart Living and a very accomplished baker, created the recipe for these irresistible cookies. We’ve tried lots of pecan bars over the years, but John’s are the absolute best.

Sarah Bernhardt cookies are as multilayered as their namesake—the famed French actress who once starred in the title role of Hamlet. An almond macaroon base is topped with silken chocolate filling and then covered in melted chocolate, resulting in a truffle-like cookie with a bit of crunch.

A mint ganache filling and a shiny chocolate glaze push these cookies over the top, but feel free to omit the glaze—they’re delectable without it, too.

A thick layer of poured chocolate ganache frosts the top of these wedge-shaped brownies. Sprinkle with tiny heart-shaped candies for your Valentine, change the garnish to suit other occasions, or simply present them unadorned.

Fans of fudgy brownies say this is the recipe of their dreams. In fact, it’s one of our all-time reader favorites. The brownies are versatile, too—they’re equally welcome packed into a picnic basket or stacked atop a cake stand and presented at the end of a dinner party.

Rugelach are traditionally hand formed into crescent shapes; here we’ve used the same ingredients to create easy-to-prepare bar cookies. The filling—a combination of chopped chocolate and dried fruit—is more traditional than the prune filling used for the rugelach on page 298.

Dulce de leche is a popular sweet in Argentina and throughout the rest of South America, where it is also called manjar and leche quemada (“burnt milk”). Store-bought versions are increasingly available in North American supermarkets and specialty foods stores; use it in place of the homemade variety, if desired.

Any sun-kissed berries will work atop the cream cheese filling in these mini chocolate cheesecake cookies.

These bite-size cookies resemble little lemon pies, with a sweet, short crust and a tart cheesecake filling.

While they’re warm, these tuiles are draped over a cannoli mold or a narrow rolling pin to give them their shape. To make edible bowls for serving scoops of ice cream or sorbet, shape the warm cookie rounds over inverted muffin tins or ramekins instead.

Bite-size pistachio cookies, sandwiched around a soft, chocolate filling, are dipped in bittersweet chocolate and garnished with a sprinkle of bright-green, slivered pistachios. They are extravagant enough for a special dinner party.

These creature-of-the-night creations sandwich a rich dulche de leche filling between chocolate cookies. You will need an aspic cutter to form the bat shapes.

Flaky cream cheese dough is filled with a rich dried-fruit filling, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and baked until golden brown to form these crescents. The prunes are soaked in brandy overnight for the filling, so plan ahead if you’re making them.

After they are sandwiched with rich chestnut filling, these cookies are partially dipped into melted chocolate. Crème de marron is chestnut puree sweetened with brown sugar and vanilla. It is available at large supermarkets.

This recipe is based on the famous Key lime pie from Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Beach. If you can’t find Key limes, use fresh juice from regular limes. The bars are best garnished with whipped cream and lime immediately before serving.

These petite pastries feature the flavors and textures of pecan pie—tender, buttery crust, crunchy pecans, and brown sugar filling—all in one bite. Mascarpone, an Italian cream cheese, lends richness to the dough; look for it in the dairy section of large supermarkets, or at Italian specialty stores.

The key to success with these cookies is to bake no more than two to three on a sheet at one time. Shape them as quickly as possible after removing from the oven, because they begin to firm up as soon as they are lifted off the baking sheet. To avoid wasting cookies, try the shaping process with a circle of paper first.