One cookie to rule them all

December 2, 2024 5:13 PM

I'm forced to participate in a cookie party at work and need to bake 4 dozen cookies. What is a very tasty, perhaps could be fancy, but extremely low effort cookie to make?

I am tired. But really need to show up in an engaged way for this party. I'd like to bake these cookies on a Saturday evening and have them still be tasty for Monday. I'm a pretty good cook and bake bread, but I normally don't make cookies. I have a stand mixer and all the usual stuff.

posted by inevitability to Food & Drink (44 answers total)

Nutella cookies. Take any peanut butter blossoms recipe, sub nutella for peanut better and roll in sugar. Don't bother with chocolate on top - hershey's kisses don't go very well. You could use better chocolate if you wanted, but why? These spread a little more than peanut butter ones, but still make a normal thickness cookie.
posted by Frowner at 5:17 PM on December 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

Any reason you can’t just buy these? No one will turn you into the Cookie Monster
posted by treetop89 at 5:23 PM on December 2, 2024 [10 favorites]

Mexican wedding cookies are simple, tasty, and elegant. They're also bite-sized, so you can more easily get to the 4 dozen count.
posted by pmbuko at 5:25 PM on December 2, 2024 [6 favorites]

Snickerdoodles.
posted by The Master and Margarita Mix at 5:27 PM on December 2, 2024 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Tested recipes would also be great, thank you!
posted by inevitability at 5:28 PM on December 2, 2024

I know this one! These. Super-quick but also delicious and kinda fancy. Increase the salt. Make them half the size she says. A half-recipe will be plenty -- more than 4 dozen -- and the only time-consuming part is baking the batches, so you'll want to stop there.

If at some other time, you don't need them to be quite as effortless, they're great partly dipped or drizzled with melted chocolate, and/or filled, e.g. with an almond-paste-based filling. But they're great plain, too. Very delicate and munchable.
posted by daisyace at 5:33 PM on December 2, 2024 [9 favorites]

Dorie Greenspan's slice and bake sables are simple, delicious, and very reliable. Sparkling sugar around the edges makes them festive. Make a 1.5x batch (3 logs instead of 2) to be sure of having 4 dozen cookies.
posted by redfoxtail at 5:34 PM on December 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

I make molasses cookies sometimes - this recipe yields 24, so if you double it and are consistent with cookie size you should get to your total. When I use the recipe, I actually do double it - my KitchenAid mixer can handle it, but I have the crank bowl lift kind, not the head tilt kind. It's not a super fancy cookie, but the cracks that develop naturally add some interest.

For Frowner's PB blossom transformation into nutella cookies, you could probably start with this recipe and do the substitutions and scratch off the kisses. That one recipe should definitely get you to 4 dozen.
posted by LionIndex at 5:36 PM on December 2, 2024

Might I mention that bar cookies are, y'know, cookies? It's dead simple to mix up brownies or blond brownies, spread them in a pan and bake. If you don't cut them until Sunday, they'll be just fine, maybe even better. I know people who go nuts over the Ghirardelli brownie mix, and with good reason. But if you want something homemade, here is my recipe for Blond Brownies. These got me through many late nights of studying.

Blond Brownies
.5 c butter
2 c dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1.5 c flour
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
1 c chopped nuts

Melt the butter, add brown sugar and stir until blended. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in dry ingredients, then add vanilla and nuts. Spread in a well-greased 9x13 pan. Bake 25 min at 350F.
posted by DrGail at 5:53 PM on December 2, 2024 [7 favorites]

These eggnog snickerdoodles (NYT cooking, archive link) were the talk of my office last year and are super easy. The down side is having to source rum extract.
posted by babelfish at 5:58 PM on December 2, 2024 [4 favorites]

Standard Toll House cookie recipe, but sub fresh cranberries for the chocolate. They seem to spread somewhat more as the fresh berries do burst (and add moisture?), so they may not be as sturdy as some, but I love the sweet dough/tart fruit contrast. I expect craisins would work well instead, but I haven't tried them.
posted by ClingClang at 6:06 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

These are irresistibly delicious, and the browned butter and sea salt make them fancy enough for a party. If you're an experienced cook, you can whip them out in under 20 minutes.

The original recipe with the 10oz bag of mini marshmallows is good and not too sweet, but I used a 16 ounce bag of large marshmallows not realizing that marshmallow bags came in different weights, and the the result was even better than the original recipe.
posted by defreckled at 6:12 PM on December 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

If you don't want to just give in and buy them, this is almost as quick:

One box cake mix (I've tried all sorts... pretty much any flavor works)
Two eggs
Half a cup of either oil or applesauce
(oil makes crispier cookies, applesauce softer)

Add any mix-ins you wish, or any frosting/toppings - other than mini-marshmallows, I guarantee those don't work.
Drop onto a cookie sheet.
Bake at 400F for about ten minutes.

I usually get around two dozen-ish per recipe, maybe a few more.
So in your situation, I'd double the recipe.
posted by stormyteal at 6:24 PM on December 2, 2024 [4 favorites]

I'd buy a tub of Nestlé chocolate chip cookie dough and make those. Easy peasy and you actually BAKED them. I hate to bake but like to eat cookies.
posted by XtineHutch at 6:29 PM on December 2, 2024 [3 favorites]

This miso peanut butter cookie from the NYTimes is a twist on a classic - my personal preference is to cut the sugar a bit, but I enjoy getting the sweet and salty flavors evenly matched. It's a really easy recipe, but the miso makes it feel "fancy" to most people.
posted by coffeecat at 6:32 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

These were the best new cookies we've made in a while. Check out the comments for tips, particularly form the cookies with the dough then refrigerate. I go very light on the cinnamon which does not all go in the dough as some is rolled on the outside and skip the cayenne. Make several extras so you can pick the best looking for the exchange, I'd double the recipe.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
posted by RoadScholar at 6:40 PM on December 2, 2024 [2 favorites]

I watched this video of Sohla El-Wally making Holiday Rocky Road yesterday and actually felt sad I didn't have an occasion to make a version. That may not be sufficiently cookie-like for you, but the NYT is calling it a cookie so I think it counts. It seems fairly easy to scale up and while you probably shouldn't cut the pieces too small, I think it's a pretty easy way to get 4 dozen.
posted by edencosmic at 6:50 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

I came here to post a recipe for oatmeal lace cookies, so I'm seconding that one. They're fast and easy and look pretty. If you want to make them look fancy, let them cool a bit and roll them up. You can stack them up into a pyramid and decorate around the base with--flowers, mint leaves, little ornaments--whatever looks cute or elegant to you.

I get compliments with these, and as a baker, I truly suck.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:09 PM on December 2, 2024

Classic shortbread cookies: butter, cornstarch, flour, icing sugar, salt. If you use salted butter instead of unsalted, omit the salt. If you use a recipe that calls for vanilla go with real vanilla, unless they are mainly going to be eaten by kids. There should be tons of recipes on line. These are classic.

They don't need to be rolled out if you don't have a rolling pin, they can be patted into shape before you cut them, or you can use a smooth glass jar or tumbler for a rolling pin. They can be cut into bars or squares with a knife if you don't have cookie cutters.

You can make them fancy by decorating the tops before you bake them with glace cherries, nuts, silver dragees, hundreds and thousands, or chocolate chips. If you add almond extract to the dough, and stick a few slivered almonds on top of them (and then eat the leftover almonds as a protein snack) you get almond cookies. If you make one quarter or third of the batch into almond cookies, you can make the rest plain, or with cherries, and thus have a variety.

If you are the sort of person who already eats jam on toast, and have jam in the house or wouldn't mind buying a jar, you can dent a hole into them with your thumb and then fill the little depression with jam of some sort. Marmalade works well too. The citrus is also Christmassy.

Be careful not to over-bake them. They should only get a tinge of golden to the edges, not actually turn brown. It can help to turn off the heat a minute or three before you think they are done and let them finish cooking in the residual heat.

If you get a Christmas chocolates advent calendar, you get 25 small chocolate disks that can be stuck into a blob of icing, one on top of each cookie after the cookies cool. Either buy a tube of icing to use for the glue, or mix icing sugar with few teaspoons of butter and a few drops of milk, to make your own icing, that will harden as it dries and is better if the cookies get stacked.

These are a Christmas/hogmanay tradition. Red and green cherries on top are the classical form for Christmas. If you want to press a pattern into them instead of decorate them with something stuck on top, you can do that too. One year I used a brooch to mould a snow flake pattern into the top of some of them.

Also buy a bag or two of those foil wrapped chocolate balls and scatter them between the cookies them on your serving tray, or in the cookie tins you bring them to the event in. This will make them look more enticing. A box of clementines is a healthier alternative, that can also be used to make a cookie platter look more attractive, but will require more artistry than the foil wrapped chocolates.

If they make you bring the cookies home again after all that, they freeze well.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:14 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

A number of small pretzels
An equal number of Rolo -type chocolates
An equal number of pecans

...heat oven to 250F. Place single layer of preztels on baking sheet (w/ parchment ideally). Place one Rolo atop each pretzel. Place sheet in oven for 3-5 minutes to soften Rolos.

Remove sheet from oven, press pecan into the Rolo.

Let cool.
posted by aramaic at 7:45 PM on December 2, 2024 [8 favorites]

If you want to go shortbread, the only thing complicated about this recipe is making enough room in my refrigerator for the overnight rest. Fancy it up with good butter and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt on top instead of the recommended sugar. Cut them smaller to get to 4 doz - they're rich, and I've been happy with cutting them down to half the recommended size. They keep very well and are possibly better after being stored for a couple of days.
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:53 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

These King Arthur Peppermint Snaps are always a hit when we make them. We vary the recipes we make each year, but this one is one of the constants every year since we started making them.
posted by msbrauer at 7:59 PM on December 2, 2024

My sister used to make haystacks for a big cookie swap. Bag of chocolate chips, crunchy noodle sticks. Microwave chocolate to soften, mix in noodles until coated, arrange on parchment paper in small piles of sticks. Let cool and harden. She did chocolate ones and butterscotch ones.

Not remotely fancy. But surely one of the very least effort cookies of all time. You can get many nice meltable things. Bag of Heath bits, etc. Very fancy chocolate.
posted by Glinn at 8:16 PM on December 2, 2024 [2 favorites]

Of the cookies I make regularly, I'd say the ones with the highest deliciousness-to-effort ratio are the brownie roll-out cookies from Smitten Kitchen. They are extremely easy to make and I absolutely love them. They aren't exactly shortbread, but they're shortbreadish enough that people who don't like shortbread may not like them. The recipe makes about 2 dozen, so you could double it or make these and something else.

They aren't fancy, especially the way I make them, which minimizes effort. Instead of using a cookie cutter, I just use a sharp knife or bench scraper to cut the rolled out dough into roughly rectangular shapes. With a bit more effort, you could probably do fairly uniform squares.
posted by Redstart at 8:32 PM on December 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

i can confirm the smitten kitchen brown butter rice krispies treats and brownie roll-out cookies are delicious and easy. i also love the SK confetti cookies -- they're dead simple with a stand mixer, taste way better than every other sugar cookie i've ever had, and keep extremely well.
posted by guybrush_threepwood at 9:36 PM on December 2, 2024

Mod note: [I think we all need to know The One True (easy, tasty, fast) Cookie, so we've added this to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:12 AM on December 3, 2024 [9 favorites]

Buy and bake 4 packages of Sweet Loren's cookies, and instantly find yourself popular with the gluten free vegan crowd.
posted by ktkt at 1:51 AM on December 3, 2024 [2 favorites]

gochujang caramel cookies!

I am not sure if they are extremely low effort, but I am not much of a cook/baker and I've made them twice with great results. If my neighbor didn't keep gochujang paste on hand, I might not have been able to expend the effort. But they are so so good.

I preferred the larger cookies made by Eric Kim in a NYT Cooking video, and the recipe is here but if there is a paywall, a written recipe of a very similar version (by Chef John Mitzewich) is here
posted by strivesc at 2:24 AM on December 3, 2024 [5 favorites]

Coconut macaroons are really simple to make, require only a few ingredients, and will add some variety to the usual cookie mix that you find at cookie swaps. Downside: not everyone likes coconut.

I haven't made this exact recipe but it looks very close to what I make. (note that I am deeply skeptical about one part of the recipe write-up, however: I would expect it to make a lot more macaroons than the write-up claims, as I can't see any way that a whole 5 1/2 cup bag of coconut would only make 12 macaroons. That'd be nearly a half a cup of coconut per macaroon. I'd expect more like double the quantity they claim.)
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:51 AM on December 3, 2024

How strict is "cookie"? I make these every year and they are always a big hit and easy to throw together:

Grandma's Apricot Squares

1 cup Sugar
2 Cups flour
3/4 Cup of Butter
1 Cup of flaked Coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 10 oz jar of Apricot Preserves

Mix together all ingredients except Apricot Preserves.

Line a 13X9X2 inch pan with parchment paper (not totally necessary but makes it WAY easier to remove later) and press 3/4 of mixture into the pan, reserving rest for topping. (This will be stiffer than normal cookie dough, more like a shortbread type consistency almost)

Spread Apricot Preserves on top.

Spread remaining dough mixture over top allowing Apricot to show through.

(It is easier if you break batter into smaller pieces.)

Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes until light golden brown.

Cool and cut into squares.
posted by Captain_Science at 4:42 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

Lately when I need a quick and easy cookie recipe, I usually make these caramel cuts, using molasses. The recipe came in the book included with my mixer, linked here to a baking blog. I think I've gained 10 lbs eating these.

The dough spreads a lot when baking! I'd divide the dough into 4 rolls almost as long as your baking sheet. Takes no time at all to make 4 dozen.
posted by bCat at 5:25 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

I am a fan of peanut butter cookies, and these Sriracha Peanut Butter cookies are delicious. Just a touch of spice makes a great cookie.

(Having typed that out, I'm remembering that it's a bit hard to find sriracha right now, but maybe you've got some hanging around.)
posted by hydra77 at 7:14 AM on December 3, 2024

Walnut acorn cookies! They are easy but look fancy - you make a shortbread dough, and use the bowl of a spoon to mold each into an "acorn" shape (lump of dough gets pressed into spoon, done). Then once they're baked you dip one end into melted chocolate and then into some finely-chopped walnuts. Done.

Have made these several times.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:49 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

Scandinavian Almond Bar Cookies. Super duper easy to make, look fancy, taste fantastic, and keep very well. They are a Christmas staple in our family and people are always impressed by them. They take no time to make, you basically mash the dough into one giant long cookie and then cut it into strips before it cools.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:10 AM on December 3, 2024

Trash Can Cookies - I've made these and they are easy and taste good - since the base is effectively a tollhouse cookie, you can take premade chocolate chip cookie dough and mix in the rest of the bits.
posted by plinth at 8:43 AM on December 3, 2024

Also Dorie Greenspan: I've made her world peace cookies for over a decade now and in all sorts of kitchens. You can make them in advance and keep the log in the freezer, so you can always have easy cookies on hand.
posted by Pitachu at 11:29 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

Assuming Rocky Road counts, Nigella's Christmas Rocky Road is brilliant. I substitute dried cranberries for the cherries, and don't bother with the Brazil nuts. It's such an easy recipe and so delicious.
posted by In Your Shell Like at 11:32 AM on December 3, 2024

To contrast with all the sweet things that others will bring to the party, I would recommend these savory cheddar cheese cookies. I usually form the dough into logs and refrigerate, then slice them into rounds before baking. It also helps to lightly press the pecans into the cookie with the back of a spoon halfway through baking. They are easy and always a hit.
posted by rekrap at 5:39 PM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

This chocolate crinkle cookie is fast, easy, delicious and fairly inexpensive, because there's no butter. I've also made with some added cinnamon, which is nice for Christmas. When I make any scoop cookies now, I use this technique from the King Arthur flour website. It works well if you make the dough once day and then portion the chilled dough the next day.
posted by ice-cream forever at 6:01 PM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

I recommend the Smitten Kitchen Salted Peanut Butter Cookies. One jar peanut butter, add eggs and brown sugar, put in pan in spoonfuls, and that's it. The recipe says it makes 26-28, but that is making them very big. If you use a more standard tablespoon you will get a mounded but completely reasonable size cookie and you should be able to manage 4 dozen. Worst case, you might need to use a big jar of PB and add an extra egg and a little more sugar.

Also, a very forgiving recipe- I use all-natural chunky peanut butter, because that's what I keep in the house, and short the sugar since I'm usually making it for grownups who are happy with it being less sweet, and I don't think I've ever remembered the salt. And you can skip the chilling steps if you are in a hurry, it really doesn't matter. And they are still come out delicious and people ask for the recipe. Also gluten free if that's helpful.
posted by Dorothea Ladislaw at 3:19 PM on December 4, 2024

Hands down my favorite for this reason is Honey-Kissed Chocolate Drops. Interesting flavor, very few ingredients, easy to make festive (just get the right color sprinkles). Whip up a double batch, roll balls, thumbprint, Hershey's kiss. (I don't eat dairy so I use mini dark chocolate chips which are also good). Truly, they look as good as sugar cookies with MUCH less work.
posted by Isingthebodyelectric at 12:25 PM on December 5, 2024

America's Test Kitchen's Lan Lam's Cookie video is imformative and not hard to follow.
posted by mmascolino at 4:38 PM on December 5, 2024 [2 favorites]

If you're allowed to use premade puff pastry, palmiers lined with a fruit jam are really easy to make
posted by estherbester at 9:53 AM on December 6, 2024

Response by poster: To close out, I made two pans of brownies (I have a great recipe, didn't even think of it, I was so cookie-focused) and also tried the Smitten Kitchen confetti cookies because it was so easy in a food processor and my kid had fun rolling them. Thanks all! This is every year so I'm grateful to have these recipes!
posted by inevitability at 5:14 PM on January 7