Holiday Cookies and Candy for Now till Lunar New Year

When people ask me about holiday baking, I think of not just Christmas but also of Lunar New Year. That's because I stretch the celebration out. My family is Catholic and we also observe Vietnamese Tết, which follows the lunar calendar. A double whammy. For that reason, when Food52 asked me to contribute a cookie recipe to their 2019 Cookie Chronicles, I selected my Chinese-ish almond cookies, a recipe originally published in Into the Vietnamese Kitchen thirteen years ago. It's one of my favorites and I make it basically around now till whenever the Lunar New Year is!

For a long time, Vietnamese people made bánh hạnh nhân with a peanut crown for reasons that I've not yet understood. My mother loves almonds and I love almond cookies so I developed a boffo recipe for my 2006 book. If you don't have Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, the recipe is now available here. The above image should be credited to the team at Food52: photographer Rocky Luten; food stylist Samanta Seneviratne; and prop stylist Brooke Deonarine.

Here are more sweet recipes on this site, organized for your baking mood and/or the intended recipient (should you want to share your efforts).

Indulgent Magic 7-Layer Cookie Bar

If I want to please my mom extra, I make the above almond cookie AND a batch of these Magic 7-Layer Cookie Bars. She discovered these in the 1970s after we settled in America. They are sweet but also nutty with nuts and coconut, plus chocolate plus sweetened condensed milk. They are easy.

We no longer have them as often as we did decades ago but when they appear on our holiday table, my parents and siblings smile. The recipe is here for you to use, tweak, and make your own.

Nutty Good Peanut Cookies

My apologies for those who can't eat peanuts. These Chinese cookies are absolutely delicious. My dear friend and food stylist Karen Shinto turned me on to them and I make them around Lunar New Year, but also around Christmas. These are called hua sheng bing in Chinese and the recipe yields a plump, short cookie. I'm not one for icing cookies at Christmas, but I love decorating these little guys with a tiny stamp.

Low-Guilt Triple Ginger Cookie

I like to keep some of this cookie dough in my freezer for little after dinner treats. They're buttery but not overly so. They're shot through with flavor from three sources of ginger. The dough thaws fast. I can bake them up in the toaster oven! They are best soon after they're out of the oven. They are small so you don't feel guilty eating a few.

For all those reasons, I've been baking these cookies since the late 1990s. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. The recipe is here.

Light and Breezy Tangerine Meringue Kisses

If you want to go lighter than the gingery cookie or have a gluten-free issue, make meringue! My family has been meringue-ing for decades. They originally made the kisses to resemble mushroom caps, which we'd employ to decorate Christmas yule logs. But the logs are a multi-day project so I stick with mostly making the meringues. This recipe is flavored with tangerine -- a seasonal fruit that also has good fortune meaning during Lunar New Year.

So yes, this recipe is great for now till Tet/Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year! Double holiday, double happiness.

Old Timey-ish Candied Orange Peels

Who makes candied orange peels anymore? Me! They are stupendous and better than store bought. As citrus comes into season these days, I save the peels and cook them into chewy-slightly bittersweet morsels.

My family rarely serves one sweet for dessert. We parade out an assortment of fruit and candies and baked goods. Dessert lasts for a good hour so it's like another meal! For Tết , there's usually candied fruit or vegetables to nibble on, so I definitely include these in my offering to family and friends. It's a recipe I return to year after year.

Explore 2019 Cookie Recipe Collections

My friends and colleagues have put together great Christmas ideas at Food52, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. Check them out and sorry if you face paywalls. I subscribe and when possible, try to share as much as I can.

Let the sweet holiday season begin in your kitchen!