Giving from the heart is something Cook's Corner readers do with grace. For 25 years, they've shared their treasured recipes -- a generosity of spirit that's especially sweet in this holiday season of home-baked gifts and cookie exchanges.
Speaking of cookies, we've published dozens upon dozens of recipes for them over the years, from Italian sfingi and Polish kristicki to Spanish polvorones and Scottish shortbread.
We've learned that spritz cookies and macaroons are flavored and decorated differently depending upon their immigrant roots -- with cardamom in Swedish-American Minnesota, for example, and pignoli in Boston's Italian North End.
And we've admired the ingenuity of World War II housewives who incorporated dates and other dried fruit into their baking when rationing made sugar scarce.
We've published countless bar-cookie recipes, many with whimsical names like Hello Dollies, Nonaimos, Magic Bars, Gold Rush Cookies and -- playing off another favorite theme -- Cake Mix Yummies.
Bakeries, shops and restaurants have shared recipes, too, for such favorites as Croissan'time's golden rum-raisin cookies, By Word of Mouth's chocolate truffle cookies and Epicure Market's rugelach.
It was a challenge selecting just a dozen recipes to reprise for this holiday edition of our 25th anniversary series.
In addition to some of the classics already mentioned, you'll find Key Lime Meltaways, a scrumptious icebox cookie for which you can mix the dough weeks or even months ahead. (I once forgot I had a roll in the freezer, and baked it a year later with no discernible difference in flavor.)
You'll also find a favorite sugar cookie, a variation on the thumbprint theme and wonderfully light and easy ''forgotten'' cookies.
Finally, there are four candy and snack recipes I am particularly fond of making as holiday gifts: Nicaraguan crema de leche, baked toffee, spiced nuts and microwave peanut brittle. First, they are delicious. Second, they are amazingly quick and easy, with no candy thermometers or testing required.
Happy holidays!
