By now you know that I don’t care much for chocolate. Unfortunately, most of my friends do and so I thought I would try to selflessly include one chocolate recipe in this cookie carnival. My goal was to find a recipe I might actually like, which means there needed to be lots of butter and other distractions. These Mexican Chocolate Cookies are the perfect compromise. They are a rich chocolate-flavored butter cookie spiced with cinnamon and cayenne pepper. They are tasty and were a big hit with my friends. They are especially nice with a cup of coffee. And because they are slice and bake, you can have freshly baked cookies whenever you like which makes them perfect for the holiday season.

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I’m not sure when I first looked at a food blog. Are you? Did I even understand what it was when I first saw one? Another weird blog thing? I know that one of the first food blogs I fell in love with was The Wednesday Chef. It was maybe three years ago that I found Luisa Weiss’ outstanding site. I immediately enjoyed her writing—it was smart, it was emotional, and it was funny. Luisa made blogging cool. (At the time, blogging was decidedly not cool—maybe it still isn’t.) It has been a pleasure to watch Luisa cook her way through recipes, both good and bad, and share her stories. I am so very pleased to have Luisa participating in the 12 Days of Cookies, especially now as she prepares to leave the states and head across the pond for exciting new adventures in Berlin (for more on that, read this incredibly moving post). Luckily, she is taking us all with her. read more+++

There is a surprisingly lengthy Wikipedia article on Lebkuchen (or, as I learned, pfefferkuchen), which are German gingerbread. They go back as far as the 13th century to a group of monks who would bake them on top of communion wafers to prevent them from sticking. Or not, it is a wikipedia article after all. I am choosing to believe the article. Especially the part that claims the roots of these cookies go back to ancient Egypt when they were made with honey and used to protect you from evil spirits. read more+++

We’re almost halfway through the 12 Days of Cookies! It is going so fast. I may actually be getting tired of eating cookies. Luckily, we have some friends coming over today to help us eat the growing piles of cookies in our kitchen. This next cookie was a special request from Bryan. He wanted something with anise seed and when I saw this recipe for a Greek-style butter cookie filled with anise and almond and dusted with confectioner’s sugar I knew he would like it. These just dissolve in your mouth, little delicate morsels of liquoricey goodness. read more+++

For the 4th Day of Cookies I am sending you on an adventure over to one of my favorite blogs, 101 Cookbooks. The amazingly talented Heidi Swanson has agreed to provide us with our 4th cookie, and boy did she deliver! Her Sparkling Ginger Chip Cookies are real beauts. read more+++

Growing up, my aunt was the primary cookie-maker in our family. Every Christmas Eve we would all look forward to the giant plate of cookies she would bring (actually, it was usually a sweater box from Marshal Fields that she had lined with waxed paper and filled with cookies). Her cookies were famous. There were an assortment but what I really looked forward to were what we always called kolaches, or more phonetically: kolachkies. They were an unsweetened pastry dough with assorted fruit fillings, somewhere between a cookie and a pastry. Man, I loved those cookies. read more+++

DORIE GREENSPAN! I’m sorry, I can hardly contain my excitement over this next guest! Dorie Greenspan is one of my baking heroes— she is a baking goddess. Though we have never met (someday!), I feel as if I know her from spending so much time with her cookbooks and website. I even discovered one of my favorite restaurants in Paris thanks to her (Bistro Paul Bert). Her books are the ones I return to most often when I am trying to figure out a recipe problem or want to feel inspired to bake something new. Baking, From My Home to Yours is the book that I recommend if someone is only going to have one baking book on their shelf or doesn’t know where to start. I mean, there is an entire blog dedicated to this book and hundreds of home cooks bake her recipes every week.

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Welcome, dear readers, to the first of 12 DAYS OF COOKIES! That is right, from today until December 12th, I will be bringing you a new post and a new cookie recipe each and every day. 12 Lottie + Doof-style cookies to make for your friends and family (or yourself). But that isn’t all! The best part is that I am going to have some very special guests helping me out along the way. Who, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to wait and find out, but I promise it will be good. We’ve been working together for the last few weeks pulling together some very delicious cookie recipes to share with all of you! Starting now… read more+++

Today we are hosting our very first Thanksgiving in our new place. I’m not a traditionalist when it comes to this meal. Turkey never impresses me and since I am now in charge— I declared it a turkey-free Thanksgiving! Although this declaration was met with resistance (mostly from Bryan) I am confident that I will be able to convince everyone that we can still give thanks without killing a turkey (instead we will kill a cow). We’ll still have a really lovely meal, just minus the bird. I’ll tell you a little more about the feast once I have cooked it, but for now I wanted to share these delicious little cheese straws that will accompany cocktails and wine at the start of the meal. read more+++

Truth be told, I don’t care so much about pumpkins. I love them when they are hollowed-out and carved into jack-o-lanterns but I don’t need them in my ravioli, bread, or pies. I get excited about the first bite but I am usually bored by the second.  I generally pass up recipes for pumpkin bread, but this recipe was in my new cookbook obsession, The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco. Bryan loves pumpkin bread and so I thought I would give it a try. read more+++